Aristotle delivers valuable (and detailed!) data to candidates about potential supporters. In fact, don’t be surprised if the candidates know more about you than you do about them.
Diesel Civil Trust
ACTA passed one of the several voting gates it needs to get through before becoming law.
It was ratified in Poland last night. This was the scene at Polish parliament afterwards, as (presumably) a bloc of anti-ACTA politicians expressed their displeasure and, perhaps without knowing it, foretell of the Anonymous repercussions to this bill.
EDIT: Just so we’re clear, this does not mean ACTA has been signed into international law. It means that it’s getting much closer to being signed into law.
Some things you should know:
- Online petitions are meaningless. While they are well-intentioned and organized, the signing of a digital petition takes about twenty seconds, and does not require that you leave your beanbag chair in the coal cellar. Politicians know this, and pay just as much attention to online petitions as is warranted by a “political action” that is literally less strenuous than leaving a YouTube comment.
- Nothing except direct action is going to do a goddamn thing. This means getting out in the street, it means DDoSing, it means vicious and widespread boycotts, site blackouts, and other strongarm tactics that actually impact the flow of money from corporations to lobbyists to politicians. How do you, as a tiny flailing consumer, do this? You can’t, really. You can join up with groups that are intent on doing actions that actually mean something, adding your voice to a chorus of hundreds or thousands, instead of screaming alone. You can contact celebrities, the spokespeople of our time, as ask them to leverage their followers on the issue. You can write to Tumblr and ask for more blackouts. None of these things will be very effective, so don’t be too disappointed when they don’t work, but they sure as fuck are more effective than online petitions, and the intense response to SOPA by corporations and consumers was responsible for getting it “tabled” (not dead, but dreaming lies).
- ACTA was already signed in the US by Obama in September of 2011. He had been praising the bill for over a year prior, and signed it without reservation. Most of us didn’t hear about it, and he likely used the 9/11 coverage to make sure of that.
- Eventually, one of these bills will pass, and the pro-corporate laws will go into effect. Expect it. Be prepared. Learn to circumvent this garbage and you’ll have a leg up when the feds shut down the internet as we know it.
- The best thing you can do now is install Tor and learn how to use it. Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis. In order to circumvent the coming corporate takeover of the web, we’re going to have to go underground, creating a sub-internet of encrypted nodes known as a “darknet”. It’s probably going to be like the internet was in the beginning, with most people only seeing what AOL wanted them to see, and only a small group of super-nerds existing outside of that bubble in the “real” internet. It’ll take another twenty years for them to catch up to us again.
- Welcome to the grim cyberpunk future.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.
Sprint has been spending the past few weeks quietly pumping out software updates that remove Carrier IQ from affected devices, and now it looks like Sprint’s flagship Android device (for now) will be able to run wild and free.
Disgust is the Cinderella of emotions. While fear, sadness and anger, its nasty, flashy sisters, have drawn the rapt attention of psychologists, poor disgust has been hidden away in a corner, left to muck around in the ashes.
(Reuters) - Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s online profile was larger-than-life, with fast women, faster cars and chartered planes, yet he lived like a virtual recluse in a sprawling, manicured estate on the outskirts of New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland.
Microsoft Re-Designs the Ipod Packaging (by walshb6413)
(Reuters) - Not too long ago, Web coding was the rarified realm of computer geeks, but a new crop of entrepreneurs is making this valuable computer skill available to just about anyone with an inclination to learn.
Marie and I were interviewed for an article about our Danish helmet website Cykelhjelm.org the other day and we were talking with the journalist about how in The Netherlands there is a completely different focus. How the Dutch prefer to tackle dangerous traffic situations instead of fear-mongering about helmets.
Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA at the Nashville airport.
Has Mitt Romney Ever…
Riddle me this, Republicans. Has Mitt Romney ever built a bed, or similar piece of furniture, rather than buy one of sub-standard quality?
I bet not. But I have.
A common man he isn’t.
The most senior Texas state lawmaker admitted last week that he voted to save red light camera programs even though he knew they had no effect on public safety.
State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston), who was first elected to the legislature in 1973, appeared on KTRH radio’s morning news program to discuss how public opposition to red light cameras persuaded legislators to devote some of the camera profit to trauma centers.
(Source: azspot, via politicalcrazyness)
When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.
This article highlights some key economic, and cultural differences between the United States and China. Would I come in on Saturday and work 12-hour days every week? Hell no. And therein, is one of several challenges. Emphasis mine.
“Back then, even one straw belonged to the group,” says Yen Jingchang, who was a farmer in Xiaogang in 1978. “No one owned anything.”
At one meeting with communist party officials, a farmer asked: “What about the teeth in my head? Do I own those?” Answer: No. Your teeth belong to the collective.
In theory, the government would take what the collective grew, and would also distribute food to each family. There was no incentive to work hard — to go out to the fields early, to put in extra effort, Yen Jingchang says.
“Work hard, don’t work hard — everyone gets the same,” he says. “So people don’t want to work.”
In Xiaogang there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate.So, in the winter of 1978, after another terrible harvest, they came up with an idea: Rather than farm as a collective, each family would get to farm its own plot of land. If a family grew a lot of food, that family could keep some of the harvest.
This is an old idea, of course. But in communist China of 1978, it was so dangerous that the farmers had to gather in secret to discuss it.
(Source: evilteabagger)
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