At the BBC, Alan Moore comments on the rise of the Guy Fawkes mask -- made famous by his amazing graphic novel V for Vendetta, and by the mediocre movie adapted from it -- as the face of Anonymous and other protest groups.
(BTW, a guy who seemed to be experiencing a headful of interesting chemicals told me at a New Year's party that I looked like Guy Fawkes...make of that what you will.)
Back in the glory days of USENET, we would half-joke about the "NSA Line Eater", a (hypothetical?) program that scanned posts for keywords like "cocaine", "nuclear materials", or "Palestinian". It was a standard practice to deliberately include these words in one's .sig or in a header, to overwhelm the (supposed?) spooks.
Well my friends, everything old is new again, and history repeats itself as farce. According to our good friends at EPIC, DHS is using fake accounts to routinely monitor Twitter and Facebook for key terms. And they're serious about it: two unfortunate British tourists were denied entry to the U.S., arrested, and had their passports confiscated after joking on Twitter that they were going to "destroy America" and "dig up Marilyn Monroe".
Now, here's the thing about our confused fans in domestic surveillance: they've actually given us a partial list of what they're looking for. Page 17 of this Department of Homeland Security memo tells us that terms like:
-- well, the list goes on for a bit -- will get their attention.
So, in the spirit of the old NSA Line Eater, and to show that broad snooping, arresting tourists for Family Guy-inspired jokes, and security theater are not the ways to keep us safe, I suggest we start incorporating these terms into our tweets and posts. Have fun.
(nerve agent ricin H5N1)
Three crazy things I read before breakfast today:
By fitting the gyromodel to facts accumulated over scientific history, Dr. Andrulis confirms the proposed existence of eight laws of nature. One of these, the natural law of unity, decrees that the living cell and any part of the visible universe are irreducible. This law formally establishes that there is one physical reality.
Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.
For thorough debunking, see Ars Technica, Retration Watch, and PZ Myers. My first guess was that we might have a Sokal here, but instead it looks like a smart guy having a breakdown. May his nervous system recover its equilibrium.
But the product of Dr. Andrulis's unbalanced brain is not nearly as nutso as two proposals I read today from Republicans:
From the beautiful irony department: a South Carolina circuit court judge has ruled that New Beginnings Baptist Church, a "black church" according to the AP, owns the building housing the "Redneck Shop", a disgusting little business which runs a Klan museum and sells such winning merchandise as KKK robes and T-shirts with racial slurs.
The Redneck Shop runs out of an old movie theater in Laurens, about 70 miles northwest from Columbia. SC. It's been there since 1996, but in 1997 in-fighting within the KKK, and possibly someone seeing the light, resulted in one the Klansmen transferring the building to church ownership.
While a clause in the deed entitles proprietor John Howard, the former KKK grand dragon for the Carolinas who is the store's proprietor, to run his store in the buildng until he dies, the delightful-ness of this irony remains.
I've been pointing out Ron Paul's history of publishing vile racist and homophobic newsletters for years. Now mrdestructo.com has found, scanned, and posted dozens of the documents in question. "Mobutu Sese Seko" also posits a possible explanation I had not considered: Paul is neither a racist nor incompetent to run a 'zine, but is deliberately publishing this crap to rile up support (and money) from racists.
Also on the Paul front, two demonstrations of his opposition to liberty: Paul once introduced a Constitutional amendment to allow the states to outlaw destruction of the flag (i.e., burning the flag in protest), and he has stated that there is no right to privacy and that states can legitimately outlaw consensual sexual behavior. (He also describes here his opposition to the separation of church and state, but that's old news.)
Senator Bernie Sanders (one of the few American office-holders I'd like to sit down to lunch with) has proposed a Constitutional amendment to remove corporate personhood and get corporate money of of politics. It provides as follows:
A fable:
Once upon a time, there was a king. As kings go, he was far from the worst his people had seen. He was of a kinder disposition than the tyrants of neighboring lands, and under his rule his people were more prosperous than their grandparents had been. (Though some people pointed out that this prosperity was based on chopping down the old forest, selling the wood, and cultivating more land, and what would the people do when the forest ran out?)
Still, he was a king. Because of an accident of birth, he lived a privileged life in a palace, worse the finest clothes, and feasted every night, while his people lived in rude huts, worse corse cloth, and ate simple fare. But being a decent king, he always left the scraps from his nightly feast for any hungry peasants.
The Senate will soon vote on S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The bill authorizes $663 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that began October 1. This is considered "must pass" legislation, since it funds the military-industrial complex and our endless war. (Probably the best thing for the nation and the world would be for it to fail to pass, forcing us to bring the troops home and freeing up that $663,000,000,000 for peaceful uses, but, fat chance of that.)
Two potential provisions of this bill threaten to return us to the worst abuses of the Bush era.
<facepalm> I support the right to keep and bear arms. This doofus is not helping. (BTW, in my experience, socialists are more likely to own guns than the general population. As Orwell -- a socialist -- wrote, "That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.")
Obama voters, Muslims need not apply for gun course
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A central Texas gun dealer ran radio ads advising "Socialist" liberals, those who voted for President Barack Obama, Arabs and Muslims that they need not apply for his concealed gun license class.
This is what inadequate heath care looks like. This is what a system that puts profits over treatment looks like. Right-wingers will say this $10 million settlement shows the need for tort reform; sane people will say that the fact that a toddler lost her feet, left hand, and part of her right hand because of delayed emergency room care shows the need to real health care reform.
From http://news.yahoo.com/girl-10m-amputations-er-delay-185910406.html:
The family of a California toddler whose feet, left hand and part of her right hand were amputated because of a lengthy emergency room delay has agreed to a $10 million malpractice settlement.
...
The hospital instead told them to continue waiting, and it was five hours before Malyia was first seen by a doctor, the document said.
"Ryan Jeffers and Leah Yang saw their daughter get weaker and sicker hour after hour as (hospital workers) chose to delay treatment," the complaint said. "They saw the bruising on her body increase, affecting her legs, arms and face. They were afraid she would die in the waiting room."