Totalitarianism Watch (Not jack-booted thugs but...)

[shadowgrin]

Finally, the Bailey twins Ben and Yohance, with Andrew Begley, and Jae can no longer bully anonymous NLSC members like JT_55.

[Andrew]

With over 39,000 users in the database - not all of whom are active but none of whom fit the criteria set forth in that bill - the fine for the NLSC would be thusly be over $39 million US. Donations will be accepted through PayPal.

[benji]

United States, Florida.*

The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants.

Lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that could mean suspensions for students with droopy britches. It won't become law unless the House of Representatives passes a companion measure.

Supporters say schools sometimes don't properly police dress codes and parents are often "under aware" of what their kids are wearing to school.
...
Despite being the butt of jokes, the bill's sponsor, Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin, a Democrat, has said the fashion statement has a back-story -- it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.

"All we're trying to do now is trying to inform folks that we have a fad now that does not have a very good origination," Siplin said. "We're trying to make an example in school," he added, saying it would help students get jobs and a degree.

*Sigh...this is that "silent totalitarianism" Jewberg likes to talk about. When did we decide the state has the authority to decide how we wear our clothes?

[Andrew]

the fashion statement has a back-story -- it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.

Is that actually true, or just an urban myth? In any case, it's really stretching for a reason, unless they can prove that adopting that style of fashion will lead people to become criminals, poor students or unemployed (with the exception of anyone who dressed like that for a job interview).

[benji]

United States

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who's using an open wireless connection--and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.
...
The implications of the FBI's hyperlink-enticement technique are sweeping. Using the same logic and legal arguments, federal agents could send unsolicited e-mail messages to millions of Americans advertising illegal narcotics or child pornography--and raid people who click on the links embedded in the spam messages. The bureau could register the "unlawfulimages.com" domain name and prosecute intentional visitors. And so on.

FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects

[shadowgrin]

Something tells me I shouldn't have clicked the links in that article.

Interesting in one of those links:

In a 1986 case called U.S. v. Dost, a federal judge suggested a six-step method to evaluate the legality of images. Here's an excerpt from the opinion:

1. Whether the focal point of the visual depiction is on the child's genitalia or pubic area.
2. Whether the setting of the visual depiction is sexually suggestive.
3. Whether the child is depicted in an unnatural pose, or in inappropriate attire, considering the age of the child.
4. Whether the child is fully or partially clothed, or nude.
5. Whether the visual depiction suggests sexual coyness or a willingness to engage in sexual activity.
6. Whether the visual depiction is intended or designed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer.

In 2002, Rep. Mark Foley announced a bill called the Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act that would effectively ban the sale of photographs of minors. But under opposition from civil libertarians and commercial stock photo houses like Corbis, it never left committee. (Foley, of course, is the same politician who resigned in September after disclosures of inappropriate conversations with a teenage page.)

[Matt]

about the ISP in Aus......

wouldn't it be much easier if parents just changed the content settings on their computers. You can make all porn/offensive language/violence etc disappear with just a few clicks and a PW

[Drex]

benji, change you freakin' title plz

[Andrew]

about the ISP in Aus......

wouldn't it be much easier if parents just changed the content settings on their computers. You can make all porn/offensive language/violence etc disappear with just a few clicks and a PW

Much easier, though no method is completely foolproof since kids are usually just as computer savvy as their parents (and often more so). I've read that the proposed technology for filtering content from the ISP's end is sometimes ineffective with adult content being let through and family-friendly content being blocked.

[shadowgrin]

benji, change you freakin' title plz

I like it.
It stretches the page but not the kind of stretching done by a very long url address or big picture.
I like the "different look" it gives the threads.

[BigKaboom2]

benji, change you freakin' title plz

stop oppressing him plz

[Lamrock]

Thank god he doesn't post in the dynasty sections.

[benji]

benji, change you freakin' title plz

Changed it, per your request.

[benji]

United States, Alabama:

Mobile police are looking to ban the sale of hooded jackets that zip up over the face and have been used in several recent robberies.

Unlike regular hooded sweatshirts, which zip up to the neck, these garments can be zipped all the way to the top of the head and can have eyeholes cut into them.

"I'm almost to the point of outrage concerning the hoodies," Police Chief Phillip Garrett said. "I don't think these should be sold. The only reason you would buy one is to disguise your identity."
...
He also asked that parents go through their teens' closets and cars to see if they own any of the hoodies, saying innocent kids wearing the outfits could put themselves at risk of being mistaken for criminals by police.

"I don't want anybody to get hurt, the child or the police officer," Garrett said. "But that's going to happen at some point if this doesn't slow down."
...
Deputy Chief Jim Barber even normally good kids are committing crimes because the hoodies give them a feeling of invulnerability.

"This is what's motivating people who otherwise would not commit crimes to commit some very serious crimes, armed robbery in particular," Barber said
...
Barber said while the hoodies have been worn in a number of recent crimes, they're not being used as part of an organized gang.

"There is no hoodie gang," he said. "There is a hoodie garment that seems to be motivating people to do a lot of things they otherwise wouldn't."

Mobile police looking to ban masked hoodies, say encourage crime

They're full of magical powers that turn people evil, just like guns or symbols representing guns!

[shadowgrin]

Other than turning them evil you also forgot about making the wearer invulnerable:

even normally good kids are committing crimes because the hoodies give them a feeling of invulnerability.

[Andrew]

They're full of magical powers that turn people evil, just like guns or symbols representing guns!

Or movies and video games that millions of people watch or play without it leading to any crime or disaster yet are somehow always linked to (and solely responsible for) violence in society.

[benji]

The businessman was meeting with clients for lunch at Mimi's Café when he noticed the woman. Sitting a few tables over with her 4-year-old boy, she seemed groggy — yet she was drinking a mimosa.

It got worse. The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another. She was so out of it, the businessman would later write in a statement to police, that she looked ready to fall asleep at the table.
...
By the time the cops showed up a few minutes later, the woman already had parked at the Chandler Mall, less than a mile from Mimi's. She was buying bath salts when the businessman pointed her out to the cops.

Thanks to the businessman's intervention, Shannon Wilcutt was eventually charged with three felony counts: a DUI above 0.08, a DUI with a child under 15 in the car, and drug possession.

Justice served, right?

Hardly.

Turns out, those glasses of white wine were actually water.
...
The proof is in the police report: Wilcutt's blood alcohol content was only 0.02, the equivalent of one drink. She wasn't even close to the legal limit.

No matter. Shannon Wilcutt was busted anyway. Her little boy was taken from her as she was handcuffed, arrested, and entered into the justice system. That meant weekly random alcohol tests, weekly phone calls to a court-appointed "counselor," and the looming possibility of heavy fines and a three-year license revocation, not to mention jail time.
...
Chandler Police had recommended that Shannon Wilcutt be charged with "being impaired to the slightest degree," a charge that allows cops to use discretion and charge someone with DUI, even if their blood alcohol content is as low as 0.02. But when the Maricopa County Attorney's Office indicted her, Wilcutt was instead charged with DUI above 0.08

It took less than one drink to get Shannon Wilcutt busted for felony DUI

[JT_55]

Not too familiar with the justice system, but can't one appeal if they are charged with something they did not do?

[benji]

No, that's what a trial is for...

[Andrew]

Interesting read, particularly the first two cases. So much for innocent until proven guilty and evidence.

[shadowgrin]

The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another

Thanks to the businessman's intervention

People should mind their own business. That dude could have asked the waiter if the woman was actually ordering wine instead of water.

[Andrew]

I suppose he thought he was doing his civic duty, preventing another alcohol related accident but he was poking his nose in where it didn't belong. Perhaps he could have gone to up her and simply asked if she was alright and gotten the whole story before making a big mistake and causing her a lot of grief.

[benji]

Haven't really gotten into columns in here, but this is a good place to start:
Greens are the enemies of liberty:Environmentalists want to curb our freedom far more than the government's anti-terrorist laws ever will

Imagine a society where simply speaking out of turn or saying the "wrong thing" was openly discussed as a crime against humanity, and where sceptics or deniers of the truth were publicly labelled "criminals", hauled before the press and accused of endangering humanity with their grotesque untruths.

Imagine a society where even some liberals demanded severe restrictions on freedom of movement; where people campaigned for travelling overseas to be made prohibitively expensive in order to force people to stay at home; and where immigration was frowned upon as "toxic" and "destructive".

Imagine a society so illiberal that columnists felt no qualms about demanding government legislation to force us to change our behaviour; where the public was continually implored to feel guilty about everything from driving to shopping – and where those who refused to feel guilty were said to be suffering from a "psychological" disorder or some other species of mental illness".
...
Environmentalists are innately hostile to freedom of speech. Last month James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate change scientists, said the CEOs of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature. They have been "putting out misinformation", he said, and "I think that's a crime". This follows green writer Mark Lynas's insistence that there should be "international criminal tribunals" for climate change deniers, who will be "partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths". They will "have to answer for their crimes", he says. The American eco-magazine Grist recently published an article on deniers that called for "war crimes trials for these bastards… some sort of climate Nuremberg."

It is the mark of shrieking authoritarianism to look upon dissenting views not simply as wrong or foolish, but as criminal. Throughout history inquisitors and censors have sought to silence sections of society by labelling their words as "dangerous" and a threat to safety and stability; now environmentalists are doing the same. Their demonisation of sceptics as "deniers" has had a chilling effect on public debate. The environmentalist ethos is hostile to free movement, too. Behind the greens' attacks on road-building and cheap flights there lurks an agenda of enforced localism. What most of us experience as a liberty – the ability to drive great distances or to travel overseas, something our forebears only dreamt of as they spent their entire lives in the same town – has been relabelled under the tyranny of environmentalism as a "threat to the planet".

Freedom of movement is one of the more underrated freedoms. As a highly regarded scholar from the University of Alabama once noted.

[BigKaboom2]

Stop dissenting and hating the "overwhelming consensus"! Succumb to this moral equivalent of war!

19 July 2008

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
monckton@mail.com

Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.

By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu

Dear Dr. Bienenstock,

Physics and Society

The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American
Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008
edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be
expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon
dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.

I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The
commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a
thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to
all of the reviewer's requests for revision (see the attached
reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for
physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC
evaluates climate sensitivity - a method which the IPCC does not itself
clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately
after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC's viewpoint. Some
days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following
appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website
of Physics and Society:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its
conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the
world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society
disagrees with this article's conclusions."

This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had
submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically
reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points
requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and
published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than
the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been
offered or having requested any honorarium.

Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have
the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to
it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text
to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur's findings and
ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings
were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of
the text of the Council's decision, together with the names of those
present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated
or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific
justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo,
that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had;
secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no
evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific
community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical
Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my
conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific
grounds (if any)?

Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an
apology?

Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY

The paper.

[shadowgrin]

I don't know if this belongs in this thread. Anyway..

China to censor Internet during Games
China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

"During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

Journalists working at the main press centre for the Olympics also complained that they were unable to access Internet sites belonging to rights group Amnesty International, the BBC, Germany's Deutsche Welle, Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, and Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times.

"Our promise was that journalists would be able to use the Internet for their work during the Olympic Games," said Sun.

"So we have given them sufficient access to do that."
However, in the runup to the Games the Beijing Olympic organising committee, under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, has promised full access to the Internet for thousands of reporters expected here to cover the August 8-24 Games.