Sunday, August 04, 2013

Today's Internets - "I don't believe it for a second."

Malcolm Tucker is the new Doctor.  Well, Peter Capaldi, actually.  Too much to ask that the Doctor is as obscene and swear-y as his "The Thick of It" character, I'd imagine...

 "And the sonic screwdriver goes to Peter Capaldi. The Scottish actor was named the new star of the British sci-fi franchise Doctor Who on Sunday during a live broadcast on BBC America. He will replace the departing Matt Smith, whose time in the time-traveling police box the TARDIS ends later this year. "It's so wonderful not to keep this secret any longer," said Capaldi, a lifelong fan of the show. "I haven't played Doctor Who since I was 9 on the playground.""


"...our culture is born and breed from start to finish toward accepting the disposable male complex. I had an argument with my co-workers the other day stemming from a comment i left over on A Voice for Men’s facebook page regarding circumcision. NONE of my MALE coworkers could grasp their heads around the idea that mutilating a boys genitals at an age where he his no choice, agency or ability to speak about his own genital integrity.. was just a-oh-fucking-kay.. .
because 
-it’s normal
 happens all the time 
-it keeps the dick clean 
-it’s religious 
-they don’t remember it 
They were shocked to hear about how many nerve ending you lose, and less sex sensation you get. Or that over 100 kids die a year from it.. that was news too. And even then you could tell i wasn’t winning them over. But talk of putting a scalpel near a girl… you’re Hitler. 
This continent.. it runs on misandry. Literally. The blood of men.”"


A concept I've actually come across several times in the last few weeks, this idea that what it is you actually do reveals what your true priorities.  Say you want to be in shape but haven't worked out this week and haven't tried to eat better?  Then you really don't.  Say you want to be out of debt but keep buying useless crap?  You really don't.  Say your family is the most important thing in the world to you, but spend all your time at work?  Guess what?  Sentiment is all well and good, but it's what you do that defines you.

 "Members of Congress have been repeatedly thwarted when attempting to learn basic information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and the secret FISA court which authorizes its activities, documents provided by two House members demonstrate. From the beginning of the NSA controversy, the agency's defenders have insisted that Congress is aware of the disclosed programs and exercises robust supervision over them. "These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate," President Obama said the day after the first story on NSA bulk collection of phone records was published in this space. "And if there are members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up." But members of Congress, including those in Obama's party, have flatly denied knowing about them."




"An intercepted message among senior al Qaeda operatives in the last several days raised alarm bells that led to the closing of embassies and consulates Sunday across the Middle East and North Africa, CNN has learned. CNN has agreed to a request from an Obama administration official not to publish or broadcast additional details because of the sensitivity of the information.

"Emphasis mine.  This is an example of CNN doing PR and stenography for the White House. They did it when Bush was president, and they’re doing it now. The Obama administration is, rightly, under tremendous pressure and scrutiny because of the NSA spying program. So wouldn’t it be really great if suddenly there was some great evidence that the program works and stopped the bad guys? Well, what do you know, right after it’s been shown that the White House and NSA lied — again — about the spying program, a HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS TERRORISM story breaks, and thank god for the NSA spying, because it’s the only thing between Us and Them. I don’t believe it for a second, and it reeks of the same cynical manipulation of the stupid terror alert system during the Bush years. CNN played along with the script then, dutifully doing its part in the propagandizing of Americans, and it’s doing its part again, now. "


"1. Internet privacy is dead. 
Snowden famously said, “I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email” address. XKeyscore explains how this can be done. Obviously, the government cannot collect billions of electronic messages and transactions with no smart way to sift through them, including examining them at the most detailed level...

2. The security state has trumped the Constitution. 
Snowden’s latest revelation begins by saying that any government contractor working for spy agencies can access and use this system. They don’t need a search warrant. There is no judicial process to push back. And Congress has enabled that shadow government to grow without checks and balances, which directly conflicts with the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment banning illegal searches and seizures. The Bill of Rights enshrined the quartet of police search warrants, protection against self-incrimination, trial by jury and the credo of innocent until proven guilty in response to Great Britain’s 18th-century abuses of this nature. XKeyscore completely upends those constitutional protections...

3. The security state’s defenders won’t stop lying. 
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told the Guardian that Snowden is “lying. It’s impossible for him to do what he’s saying he could do.” But the Guardian’s latest article is filled with screenshots from the program that show how to search “within bodies of emails, webpages and documents...”"



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