Phyrfight Intel

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/eff-defends-wikipedi

Legal Analysis by Fred von Lohmann
As has been widely reported, the National Portrait Gallery of London (NPG) recently sent a legal threat to an American Wikipedian, Derrick Coetzee, over his posting approximately 3,000 photos of public domain paintings to Wikipedia. Because of the importance of this issue for the public domain and the Internet generally, EFF has taken Mr. Coetzee as a client.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – CS Lewis   God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

According to Climate Depot, while speaking at Oxford on July 7th, 2009, Al Gore says that changes in global warming awareness will be driven by “global governance.”

See, I thought all the right-wing lunatics saying that a world government is coming were just crazy conspiracy theorists. Apparently, they were just crazy accurate. Oh, and I also thought that only Republicans used fear and impending doom to scare the populous into swallowing their radical legislation. Huh. It would seem I have a lot to learn about politics.

From: an email sent by Maj Joe Sturtevant, USMC ret, VMO-6, 1st MAW, QTCB 68-69

One of the “Band of Brothers” soldiers died on June 17, 2009. We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services. I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell “Shifty” Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle”, the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne, or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made. (more…)

The fact that 4 Justices on the current Supreme Court can put the issue of “historical context” over the lives and livelihood of actual living citizens, is something I simply can not get my mind around. Racism is wrong no mater which way the tide is flowing.

From CATO

In the blockbuster decision we’d been awaiting all term, the Court reached the correct result: The government can’t make employment decisions based on race. While the city’s desire to get more blacks into leadership positions at the fire department is commendable, it cannot pursue this goal by denying promotions simply because those who earned them happen to have an inconvenient skin color.

From: Human Events

While President Obama equivocated about the protests in Iran last week, Congress showed real leadership.

By an overwhelming bipartisan vote, both the House and the Senate passed resolutions expressing clear support for “all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law.”

Republicans and Democrats alike condemned the Iranian government’s violence in the streets and suppression of independent communication through cutting off internet and cell phone access.

Congratulations to Democrats and Republicans in Congress for standing up for American values and standing up for the Iranian people.

From: Threat Level

Is hacking a real threat to the United States or is it just the latest overblown threat to national security, whose magnitude is being exaggerated to expand government budgets and power?

That’s the question asked by Threat Level editor Kevin Poulsen at a panel in Computers, Freedom and Privacy in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. And it’s important because the government is spending billions of dollars on computer security, and President Obama is elevating cybersecurity to a national priority, using language that makes even security experts wince.

Reason.tv: Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld on Media Bias, Intolerant Liberals, The Stupidity of Bill Maher, And Why Drugs Really, Really, Really Need to Be Legal

Approximately 30 minutes. Warning for viewers prone to high-blood pressure, heart palpitations, and sour-puss syndrome: Gutfeld mixes humor, outrage and language salty enough to cure a side of bacon. Proceed at your own caution.

From: Treat Level

By Ryan Singel

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

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From:Game|Life

Barely 15 minutes into the new Wolverine videogame, I am ankle-deep in carnage. I have filleted soldiers straight up the center, like fish; I have spun in a pirouette of death, decapitating anyone and everyone an arms’-breadth away. And I’ve grabbed enemies by the neck, hoisting them aloft and stabbing them repeatedly — crick, crick, crick — right through their rib cages. Eeeyikes.

Does grisly violence like this make action games more fun? For years, I assumed the free market had answered that question with a resounding “yes.” If shoot-’em-up games were insanely gory, it was, I figured, because developers were simply giving their hardcore young-dude audience what it wanted. Violence sells because violence works: It’s crucial to creating a sense of dastardly fun. Right?

Maybe not. In fact, some recent and fascinating scientific work suggests precisely the opposite: In a paper in January’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a group of researchers found that violence might be the least compelling part of our favorite videogames. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the fun.

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Introduced by Rep. Linda Sanchez, Democrat from Los Angeles

From: H.R. 1966

(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

(b) As used in this section —

(1) the term ‘communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and

(2) the term ‘electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.

From: Ann Coulter via Human Events

Contrary to MSNBC hosts who are afraid of bugs, water and their own shadows, waterboarding was most definitely not a “war crime” for which the Japanese were prosecuted after World War II — no matter how many times Mrs. Jonathan Turley, professor of cooking at George Washington University, says so.

All MSNBC hosts and guests were apparently reading “Little Women” rather than military books as children and therefore can be easily fooled about Japanese war crimes. (MSNBC: The Official Drama Queen Network of the 2012 Olympics.)

Given what the Japanese did to prisoners, waterboarding would be a reward for good behavior.

It might be: waterboarding PLUS amputating the prisoner’s healthy arm, or waterboarding PLUS killing the prisoner. But waterboarding on the order of what we did at Guantanamo would be a reward in a Japanese POW camp.

To claim that the Japanese — architects of the Bataan Death March — were prosecuted for “waterboarding” would be like saying Ted Bundy was executed for engaging in sexual harassment.

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From:The Offfice of Rep Creighton

Today, HCR 50, a resolution introduced by Representative Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), affirming Texas’ sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution passed out of the House State Affairs Committee with a vote of 10-2-1.

…”Each of us, upon taking office, swore an oath to defend both the Texas and United States Constitutions.  I believe that my resolution sends a message to Washington that in Texas we intend to do just that.  For too long, the federal government has superseded it’s authority and infringed upon rights delegated to the states.  Elected leaders in Texas have the constitutional authority to determine what is best for our state without interference from Washington.  We need to stand up for that right.”

Look out users of OSs other than the “regular” operating systems. You may be asking for trouble.

From: EFF

A BOSTON COLLEGE STUDENT’S COMPUTER, CELL PHONE, AND OTHER PROPERTY WERE SEIZED as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the support for the search warrant is at times laughable. Some of the supposedly suspicious activities listed include: the student being seen with “unknown laptop computers,” which he “says” he was fixing for other students; the student uses multiple names to log on to his computer; and the student uses two different operating systems, including one that is not the “regular B.C. operating system” but instead has “a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.”

Search Warrant Excerpt

Full Story

The recent DHS (Department of Homeland Security) report, issued April 7th, is the latest in a very disturbing trend by the left and in the media to characterize political dissenters as dangerous right-wing extremists.  When I first saw the report I, like others, was almost certain that it  was a fake created by anti-Obama nut jobs.  I could not belive it was an actual government document. The DHS report, which seems uncharacteristically vague for a law enforcement assessment, goes so far as to link these “Right-Wing Extremists” to hate organizations and white supremacists. The three major news network websites ran the story pretty much as I’m sure the Obama administration intended, a chilling warning about returning veterans, guns, and hate.  Only Fox News reported the story with any integrity. The idea that the traditional press is still “The Fourth Estate“  and represents the people, is pretty much dead. Michele Malkin and others have weighed in on the DHS report but it is the way that the newspapers and networks are using this story that really concerns me. There is little doubt that a de-facto coalition exists between the Obama administration and the traditional press. God help anyone who disagrees with them.

According to The Huffington Post, a Japanese company called Cyberdyne has just built a working human exoskeleton called “HAL” that assists the wearer in movement and strength.

Apparently no one in Japan watches any American science fiction movies because that company has to have chosen the worst possible names… Cyberdyne and HAL? Wow.

How to find a Tax Day Tea Party in your area. Click here

“[April 15] is the last day for filing income tax returns — a day that reminds us that taxpayers pay too much of their earnings to the Federal Government. … While April 15 serves as a reminder, the people of the United States truly do not need to be reminded. They are victims of inflation, which pushes them into higher tax brackets. They are robbed daily of a better standard of living. They are discouraged from work and investment. … The choice before us is clear. I strongly feel that the great majority of Americans believe that nothing would better encourage economic growth than leaving more money in the hands of the people who earn it. It’s time to stop stripping bare the productive citizens of America and funneling their hard-earned income into the Federal bureaucracy.” —Ronald Reagan

From: Danger Room

Aided by social networking tools like Twitter, LiveJournal and Facebook, demonstrators in the former-Soviet republic of Moldova are gearing for another round of protests. Just yesterday, activists seized the president’s office and the country’s parliament — only to have the government take the buildings back. More crowds, however, are converging on the main square. And they are Tweeting, posting, and uploading.

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We are no longer fighting a war on terror against state-less terrorists or enemy combatants and there will not be any more terror attacks. This is all due to our new president and his use of Newspeak in the United States in the year 2009. The war on terror will now be known as the “overseas contingency operation”; “man caused disasters” will replace terrorist attacks and enemy combatants or terrorists will be known as…well they haven’t figured that one out just yet, but I can guess it will be something similar to: “the people who are double-plus ungood and who attempt acts of a similar nature”. I am sure everything is much clearer now to everyone and there will no longer be any confusion about the fruit salad.

Hey, if most of the president’s cabinet pays them, then you should as well.