Stop Internet Censorship

Act now before your life becomes a footnote.

Stop Government Censorship

SOPA 101: What Is It? Those For and Against Censorship

Someone on Diaspora asked me, “Who is in support of SOPA? Who benefits if it passes?”. Read on…

How Would SOPA Work?:

Those for Censorship:

Which tech companies back SOPA? Microsoft, Apple, and 27 others.
“The following list is every single member of the Business Software Alliance. Each of them is complicit in supporting SOPA unless they publicly distance themselves from the BSA on the issue. As the companies are, presumably, dues paying members of the BSA, they are financially supporting the enaction of SOPA. Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, AVEVA, AVG, Bentley Systems, CA Cadence Design Systems, CNC Software – Mastercam, Compuware, Corel, Dassault Systèmes, SolidWorks Corporation, Dell, Intel, Intuit, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Minitab, Progress Software, PTC, Quark, Quest, Rosetta Stone, Siemens PLM Software, Inc., Sybase, Symantec, TechSmith, The MathWorks

Those Against Censorship:

Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT
“Congress may not want to hear from opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act at today’s hearing, but that hasn’t stopped a broad coalition of (often fierce) competitors representing the Internet’s giants from placing an ad in today’s NYT, signed by Google, Facebook, Mozilla, Zynga, eBay, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and AOL.”

Other supporters against SOPA include: Wikimedia Foundation, the Brookings Institution, and human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch.

It may appear at first glance this is an American issue, but the consequences of this law, if passed, shall affect everyone worldwide. America already effectively ‘controls’ the internet via the California based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and its Domain Name System (DNS). If this law were to pass you might as well wave hello to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

“History is written by the winners – don’t be a footnote.”
Gary Walsh

Source Links:
How would SOPA work?
SOPA (wikipedia entry)
Which tech companies back SOPA? Microsoft, Apple, and 27 others.
Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT
americancensorship.org

Reporters Without Borders
Electronic Frontier Foundation
American Civil Liberties Union
Human Rights Watch
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Domain Name System (DNS)
Diaspora

Visit Woods Online Woodland Locator

If you’re a photographer, nature lover, rambler (or dogger) and live in the UK, I found a very useful site called Visit Woods, run by the Woodland Trust.

It’s one of those, ‘Enter postcode and we’ll find X nearby’ deals. It’s a great idea. I found wooded areas only a few miles away from me that I hadn’t realised existed. Not enough walking and exploring that’s the problem! Found just in time for photographing those rich autumnal colours. “Oops, sorry madam, didn’t see you there. No I’m fine thanks you just carry on without me.” :)

Links:
Visit Woods
Woodland Trust

WikiLeaks. Your future. Invest in it.

The extent of force by which non-political commercial enterprise is prepared to go in their attempts to silence WikiLeaks should be all one needs to witness just how widespread and deep the political corruption goes.

By choosing this line of action our political leaders are openly creating connections that expose themselves and foolishly implicate their own guilt.
- Gary Walsh domesticempire.co.uk

From WikiLeaks:
“WikiLeaks is under attack by the big financial services companies, but there are still ways you can beat them.”

“As a result of exposing U.S. embassies from around the world, five major US financial institutions, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America, have tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks. The attack has blocked over 95% of our donations, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The attack is entirely political. In fact, in the only formal review to occur, the US Treasury found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to financial blockade.

Your donations are vital to pay for our fight against this and other kinds of censorship, for Wikileaks’ projects, staff, servers and protective infrastructure. We are entirely supported by the general public.”

“We are forced to temporarily suspend publishing whilst we secure our economic survival. For almost a year we have been fighting an unlawful financial blockade. We cannot allow giant US finance companies to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket. Our battles are costly. We need your support to fight back. Please donate now.

Costs:
Legal: $1,200,000,
Campaigns: $300,000,
Technical Information: $500,000,
Security: $300,000,
Publications Research: $500,000,
Salaries/Staff Expenses: $500,000,
Productions: $400,000

The only thing we suppress is corruption. Are you OK with that?
WikiLeaks: Your future. Invest in it.“

Links:
Donate to WikiLeaks
Widespread corruption to block WikiLeaks

Why?

A line that, I think, originated in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys.

Diaspora Buttons

Steal These Buttons

I couldn’t find a Diaspora button anywhere, so I made a couple. :)

SAVE IMAGE:

HTML CODE:
<a href="https://joindiaspora.com/"><img src="http://domesticempire.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/diaspora_button_94x16_blk.png" alt="Join Diaspora"></a>

SAVE IMAGE:

HTML CODE:
<a href="https://joindiaspora.com/"><img src="http://domesticempire.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/diaspora_button_94x16_wht.png" alt="Join Diaspora"></a>

SAVE IMAGE:

HTML CODE:
<a href="https://joindiaspora.com/"><img src="http://domesticempire.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/diaspora_button_94x16_bl1.png" alt="Join Diaspora"></a>

SAVE IMAGE:

HTML CODE:
<a href="https://joindiaspora.com/"><img src="http://domesticempire.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/diaspora_button_94x16_bl2.png" alt="Join Diaspora"></a>

Also available at DeviantART
- – -

diaspora /dī-ˈas-p(ə-)rə, dē-/
origin: Greek, διασπορά – “a scattering [of seeds]“
1. the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network.

Join Diaspora
Diaspora Foundation
Diaspora Blog
Diaspora source at github
Diaspora at twitter
“Share on Diaspora!” – The requirements

Definition of Capitalism

Think then Print! V Mask Printable

Think then Print! V Mask Printable

Clicking either image, or here, will take you straight to the V Mask Printable page at flickr courtesy of #operationpaperstorm. Click on the Actions tab to View all sizes.

It’s not that I’m especially into the whole V for Vendetta thing, but protesting capitalism and in turn funding a major corporation seems a tad ignorant.

V Mask Printable #operationpaperstorm @flickr

BBC Shit Money Into Big Glittery Bin

Charlie Brooker’s opinion on television often tallies with my own. In a wider sense it reflects society’s obsession with style over substance. That’s why I attempt to avoid both at all costs.

“Why does the BBC dump so much money in a big glittery bin by making glossy trailers? It turns me silver with rage

All these people should be employed to make programmes, not adverts for them.

It’s like watching the BBC shit money into a big glittery bin.”

Read the full Guardian article here.

Broken Britain Riots

Broken Britain by Ingram Pinn of the Financial Times

I’m restricting access to much of the outside world due to poor health, and concentrating instead solely on getting well. As such I’ve not seen any television coverage or read any news reports about the British riots. As such I have no opinion to offer presently, but this cartoon by Ingram Pinn, located on facebook, is worth posting for it’s timeless quality. Its a comment of perennial stature.

I Want You To Think I Did 9/11

This about sums it up.

Facebook Paid PR Firm To Smear Google

Facebook Admits Planting Media Stories

Surely by now we’re all aware the people behind facebook are scum, and that all global corporations are essentially the same. But in case you exist within the naive media bubble of ignorance, here’s just one recent minor incident that amply displays how big business operate. And of course, it has none of your interests at heart.

Facebook recently unveiled plans to introduce email to their network, so planting these stories to look as if they come from independent sources is clearly part of their marketing strategy.

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

But who was the mysterious unnamed client? While fingers pointed at Apple and Microsoft, The Daily Beast discovered that it’s a company nobody suspected – Facebook.

Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson.
Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google by Dan Lyons

See also…
Facebook paid PR firm to smear Google Guardian
Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google engadget
Facebook confesses to Google smear bid Telegraph
Facebook in PR plot against Google Financial Times
…to name just a few!

I dedicate this post to each and every idiot I meet who dare look past my abundant jolly optimism and instead accuse me of being depressingly cynical in nature. Though given the choice, I think I should rather be accused of cynicism, than exist as a half-witted drone spoon-fed by mainstream media.

Not convinced? Then stick around children, because I have numerous similar quantifiable examples yet to print. ;p

P.S.
Silence Gives Way To Consent.
I was about to publish, when coincidentally I received the following advice.

A friend actually suggested, if I disapprove of said news, I should close my facebook account!
What a helpful, uplifting and progressive world view to have.
What utter naivety.
If in doubt, blurt out the first superficial response your brain can scramble. Ignore complexity; the finer detail; the sub-text.
Normally one has to read the tabloids to experience such reactionary over-simplification.

Evolution, why have you forsaken us so?

Protest The Cuts To Social Care (updated)

Disabled marchers turn out in thousands for benefits protest

UPDATED: Coverage of the day.
Guardian [1]
Guardian [2]
Independent
Channel 4 News
BBC News

11 May 2011: There’s to be a march, rally and lobbying of Parliament today, to express solidarity and anger at cuts threatening disabled people’s benefits and rights, and vital social care services.

If you can’t make it to that London, there are various other ways to make your protest heard, including writing to your MP and protesting online see The Hardest Hit website.

Below is a small selection highlighting some of the effects these cuts will have, not just for those in need of long-term care, but for everyone. Also, most importantly, the deliberate lies presented by Government, published via the NHS in a public document called ‘Working Together for a Stronger NHS’, that breaches both the Civil Service Code of Conduct and the Advertising Standards Authority code.

“Disabled people take anti-cuts protest to the courts. Lawyers await high court judgements on legal actions against council plans to cut social care.”
Karen McVeigh: The Guardian

“Social care cuts: ‘The people concerned are invisible’. The most vulnerable sections of society are emerging as the worst hit by council cuts.”
Karen McVeigh: The Guardian

Prime Minister’s Health Campaign Misleads Public

“There’s a new document on the Department of Health website called ‘Working Together for a Stronger NHS’. This manages the feat of breaching the Civil Service Code of Conduct and the Advertising Standards Authority code.”
John McTernan: The Telegraph

“The BMA were so concerned about the reforms that they held their first special representative meeting in 20 years and passed motion after motion condemning almost every aspect of the Health and Social Care Bill including one stating: “This meeting deplores the Government’s use of misleading and inaccurate information to denigrate the NHS and to justify the Health and Social Care Bill reforms.”

“The health bill is the project of a Government determined to dismember the public realm and roll back the state to allow public money to be diverted to the private sector. There is no mandate for such changes and there has been no public debate about them.”
Dr Jonathon Tomlinson: Channel 4 News website

“I’d expect this from UKIP, or the Daily Mail. Not from a government leaflet”

“HM Government have issued a new leaflet to justify their NHS reforms: Working Together For A Stronger NHS. It was produced by Number 10, appears on the Department of Health website, and many of the figures it contains are misleading, out of date, or flatly incorrect.”
Ben Goldacre: The Guardian

“Help the disabled to fight for what is right”

THIS country never had a more noble, idealistic vision than the welfare state.

Even more than World War Two, the creation of the welfare state is our finest hour.

Over the years the welfare state has been used, abused and had the micky taken out of it.

But it still has that glorious foundation – to protect the weak, to support the vulnerable, to offer a helping hand to those who need it the most.

On Wednesday May 11, thousands of disabled people and their supporters will join The Hardest Hit protest in Westminster. To support the campaign, and to fight cuts to support for disabled people, go to thehardesthit.wordpress.com

If the welfare state does not exist to help the hardest hit, then it has lost sight of why it was built.
Tony Parsons: Mirror

Disability benefit cuts ‘could breach law’

Plans to cut disability benefits could breach human rights laws, the government has been warned.

Disability lawyer Mike Charles told the BBC the moves could be unlawful if they denied individuals the right to quality of life.

Mr Charles added: “The human rights act says individuals have a right to family life, have a right to a quality of life, the whole purpose of the DLA is to put them on an equal playing field with everyone else.

“Any proposal that fails to appreciate those fundamental rights could find it is an infringement of the law.

His opinion is backed up by other specialist disability lawyers.
BBC News

Adam Curtis Teaser Trailer

Adam Curtis: The Tease

“All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, about how computers have not liberated us but distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.”

At last we have a date for transmission and a trailer for Adam Curtis’ new BBC series : Monday 23rd May at 21:00 (9pm) on BBC2.

Moreover we have two neat trailers to whet our already eager appetite.

• Teaser Trailer 1 YouTube
• Teaser Trailer 1 Download 2.67 MB (2,802,254 bytes)
• Teaser Trailer 2 YouTube
• Teaser Trailer 2 Download 14.3 MB (15,071,216 bytes)

Music featured in the trailers (hopefully this list shall grow)
• Right Where it Belongs by Nine Inch Nails Wikipedia | YouTube
• AUA by Stereo Total Wikipedia | YouTube

Further discussion at
• Adam Curtis’ BBC blog

More AC from around the web
• Adam Curtis article about Osama Bin Laden in the Guardian

30 Day Challenge

30 Day Slipped Disc With Complications Challenge.

Day 378 :{

Daily update counter

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle 2nd Series

“Stewart Lee, on TV, fills my day with certain Glee.”
Stewart Lee’s 2nd Comedy Vehicle: Wednesday, BBC 2 at 23:20 for the next six weeks, or until the fan belt goes.

The BAFTA-nominated Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle returns for a second series on BBC Two.

In this first episode, Stewart looks at the subject of charity. Or rather he tries to, but gets rather sidetracked into talking about crisps, his granddad and whether this new series is going to have any actual jokes in it.

The show is shot before a live audience, with a guest cameo by Armando Iannucci.
– BBC press release

The second series of SLCV will begin transmission on BBC2 in the post-newsnight slot on Wednesday May 4th at 11.20pm. We were asked to create a show to try and carve out the post-newsnight slot for comedy and have done so.

The material comprises the 3 hours I worked up in the Vegetable Stew shows August-December 2010, and ten minutes of old stuff, and has been seen by less than 25 000 guinea-pig people live in advance of transmission.

The material, except the ten minutes of old stuff, will not be available commercially in any other format than as part of SLCV series 2 and was generated specifically with the TV format in mind.
– Stewart Lee

Armando Iannucci:
‘There’ll be a 2nd series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. Huzzah! Huzzah!’

Stewart Lee:
“Cock-A-Hoop About New Vehicle. I’m delighted that BBC2 have recommissioned SLCV and am really looking forward to getting the team back together to make an even more irritating series than the first. I can’t believe it, frankly, and I am completely cock-a-hoop.”
– BBC Blog : 2010/02/09

links:
• Stewart Lee
• BBC iPlayer: Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

Jubilant or Not? The 2012 Diamond Jubilee

Which bit do you own?

So then, what dubious honour are we footing the bill for next? Oh yes it’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, which includes the Official Jubilee Weekend from 2nd-5th June. “The Government has announced its plans for a special four-day Jubilee weekend which will allow communities the time to come together to celebrate and commemorate the events of the last 60 years.”

Look it was drawn by a child, awww.

Does this mean the thousands, perhaps millions, like me across the Commonwealth, shall be allowed to democratically celebrate our continued disapproval of this fascist occupation? Leaving the Monarchy aside, I’d like to, what else are we meant to be celebrating? British industry, British exports, the health of the nation, the crime rate, the economy? There’s so much to choose from isn’t there?

source:
• culture.gov.uk/diamondjubilee

Say Cheese!

Here’s one you won’t find on the national front pages or souvenir tea towels.

April 29th An Important Date in History

April 29th 1945

“Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun will commit suicide the next day.”

I’m really looking forward to Saturday now.

source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_29
Thanks to Mike Bee for spotting this. :)

Stewart Lee's Austerity Binge

Stewart Lee's Austerity Binge

“I’m trying to write stand up these days that can’t be twittered or printed as a one-liner. In a era of cross-platforming in which you’re supposed to provide content for mass-media, I’m trying to write stand up that can only be done, on stage, in a room, at great length”
- Stewart Lee

source: The the Today programme

Good on ‘im!. :))

links

• Download audio
mp3 / 128bps / 4m48s edit
Stewart Lee talks about comedy and his plans as curator of Austerity Binge, part of the Southbank’s anniversary celebration of the Festival of Britain, which took place in 1951.
• Stewart Lee’s Austerity Binge
Southbank Centre celebrates Festival of Britain.
• Stewart Lee
stewartlee.co.uk