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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Information Control | Data Omission and 'Framing'

When I first 'met' Alicia, she was leaving her blogging to write up what was bugging her. She made a book. I...collected Links.
Perception Alteration...formerly Overton Window
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Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Welcome To Hooterville
On the morning of Nov. 4, I woke up in Hooterville.

Hooterville, for those of you who don't remember the '60s TV sitcom "Green Acres", was a small rural town filled with crazy people. Let me take this opportunity to fervently stress that it is not the 'ruralness' (for lack of a better word) that I am referring to here. These same types of characters can be found in virtually any sitcom setting - big city, suburbs, rich, poor - so don't go thinking I'm bashing the 'Heartland' like some over-educated, no-values-having, Cosmopolitan-swilling liberal elitist. It just happened to be the setting for this show. For those still unclear on the concept, think "The Simple Life" meets Franz Kafka. Anyhow, the story is about a New York City lawyer who longs to lead a simpler, more uncomplicated life - to buy a real farm and really farm it; to get 'back to the land'. His ditsy-but-sexy Hungarian wife loves the big city and has no interest in leaving New York. The husband puts his foot down, however, and off they go.

Once they get to bucolic Hooterville, though, nothing is as it seems. Bets are taken by the locals as to how long the greenhorns will last. Right away poor Oliver Douglas has to start dealing with the resident Con-Man-In-Chief, Mr. Haney, who, having begun the show with a swindle, makes it his mission in life to fleece Mr. Douglas at every opportunity while ladling on the country charm.

Everyone on that show, including his wife, was just nuttier than a fruitcake, and yet Mr. Douglas was the one who was unable to prevail. A reasonably sensible man, he stood no chance of success, because he was trying to deal with his neighbors in a rational, logical way. In return, he was constantly lied to, important information that everyone else knew was routinely kept from him, he was tricked into paying for things that already belonged to him. And, of course, always served up with a heapin' helping of hot, steaming corn-pone.

I didn't watch the show all that much growing up because it made me vaguely uncomfortable. It seemed wrong, somehow, that this basically decent guy couldn't get a break, ever. He didn't try to come in to the town and change things; he just wanted to learn how to fit in. He tried to play by the rules, but they kept changing the rules on him. His only fault was not being as crazy as the rest of them.

This is how I've been feeling lately - as if I have somehow wandered onto the set of "Green Acres". The inmates are in charge of the asylum. I've put up this blog in order to try and sort out what the hell happened, what the hell's going on now, and what the hell to do next!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

My Father, 'Mac' McCracken




I lost my Dad, Willard Eastman McCracken, Jr., on Saturday, August 15. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer at the end of 2005, the same kind of cancer that took Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, and generally progresses like wildfire - once it's big enough to be noticed, you usually have between 3-6 months to live. However, miraculously, he was treated successfully enough to have several years of remission - years in which my kids and husband and I were able to spend precious time with him, and time that I could share the most important ideals of my life - my progressive activism - with him, and he was able to see my book published and read my dedication to him. I'm so very grateful for that extra time that many people never get. My father was my inspiration and my biggest cheerleader, and he valued the qualities in me that I value in myself (and that not everyone else appreciates!) His expectations for me were not for money, status, or fame, but to follow my dreams and be true to them and to myself, and I'm so glad I was able to make him proud of me.

What follows is what I have written for his memorial - if you're interested, click on 'read the rest' (and, yes - that is who you think it is in the second photo!)

My New Book - "The Price of Right"


It's here!



Access to information

Obsidian Wings


http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/

Fair use?


One of the issues in the Real Networks case is whether a consumer's right to make a copy of a movie for personal use under the fair use doctrine includes a right for a business to create software that allows the consumer to make that copy.
Effectively, RealDVD argued that it had a right to supply consumers a means to legally exercise their fair use rights.
Yet, the question: if DMCA forbids companies from producing products that allow consumers to exercise their fair use rights, how real are those rights? Has the DMCA kept up with technology?

Comments
And shutting down fair use was NOT an "unintended consequence", von, it was part of the point of the DMCA.

I think that's highly debatable. I agree with the point -- made by commentators on this blog and Judge Patel herself -- that the DMCA was intended to be highly favorable to copyright holders. The anti-circumvention measures (which have limited exceptions, none of which appear to apply here) were the meat of the bill. One thought, however, was that hardware manufacturers would act as a check on unrestrained anti-circumvention, because there was nothing in the bill required hardware manufacturers to create systems that accepted all anti-circumvention measures.

At the time, I suspected that this limitation was not going to act as a practical check, because manufacturers and media providers are both incentivized to agree on a set of common standards. (In game theory terms, it is a multi-player game in which cooperation is both the pareto and Nash equilibriums.) I think history has shown that I suspicions are correct; hence, I think that it is time (some would say "well past the time") to take another careful look at the DMCA.

Posted by: von | August 21, 2009 at 10:50 AM

To pour some oil on the fire: Could the production and import of ammunition be banned in order to render the 2nd amendment rights meaningless without technically violating them?

Posted by: Hartmut | August 21, 2009 at 10:52 AM


NewsHoggers

Security Rent Seeking Resumes


By Dave Anderson:

The Sunni Arabs are back to collecting security rents the old-fashion way. They are looking the other way while the foreigners blow themselves up along with chunks of Baghdad.

In April, 2009 a large string of bombings were a friendly visit from the neighborhood protection racket murmuring loudly about what a pity it would be if someone broke into your business and blew it up:

Remember us --- that seems to be what insurgent groups in Iraq are saying this week. Car bomb blast kills 9 and wounds 18 in Baghdad, officials say

Six car bombs kill 34 across Baghdad

Anywhere else in the world, a string of seven car bombs in the capital city within a week is a notable event with international cable news shows breaking their coverage and showing the response. In Baghdad, it is merely a slightly bad week even after the ‘success’ of the surge and the buying off of the Sunni Arab nationalist insurgencies.

The Guardian is reporting reasonably informed speculation that some Sunni Arab former insurgents are beginning to become current insurgents again due to their perception of getting screwed by the Maliki government on payment, amnesty and jobs/prospects:

The Sunni Arab goal has been constant --- collect social, political, economic goodies through the provision of security rents. Pay them off or things go boom.

The overarching Iraqi Sunni Arab political goal is a return to their previously privileged positions within Iraqi society, thus receiving the economic, political and cultural rents that they previously were collecting

As Steve noted, the rents are not being paid to the Sunni Arabs, so they are starting to turn blind eyes to the useful foreign idiots again. Spectacular attacks as well as the ongoing grind of urban guerrilla warfare in Mosul will continue until the rents are paid in full and in cash or the Sunni Arab population is crushed, killed or force to become refugees.


BlueBloggin
http://www.bluebloggin.com

GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security

Posted by nytexan

GUEST POST: by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The ascension (apotheosis?) of every GOP ‘President’ is inevitably accompanied by much GOP salivating over the prospects of getting their greedy, crooked mitts on your Social Security. Thus it was just over eight years ago when George W. Bush assumed (and I do mean ‘assumed’) the highest office in the land. Rest assured, despite the financial implosions of late, the GOP still plots to rob you blind, screw you silly and leave you a worthless slug on the night stand!

The GOP licked its greedy chops chops as the stupidest man, the grossest idiot since Warren Harding raised his hand and dared to swear on a holy book! The same gang of mendacious robber barons who made fortunes short-selling stocks on 911, profited from mass murder, and, later, plunged this nation into a new ‘Great Depression’ saw in the rise of George W. Bush another opportunity to steal your Social Security and buy Baltic Avenue with it!

It was not sufficient that GOP policies had enriched only the very, very rich. As a result, just one percent of the nation now owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! But the greedy bastards wanted to own all of it! They wanted your your retirement! They wanted the monies you paid into Social Security over the course of your lifetime! Joe the Plumber recently called Social Security a joke –not because he understands why it is coveted by the GOP. He is merely the recipient of the ‘memo’. Stealing your Social Security is still very high on the GOPs list of great things it wants to fuck up permanently! We should take Joe and Palin seriously. The world is endangered by its idiots.
Now –what if the GOP had succeeded already? Simply –the Social Security trust fund would be collapsed and millions of seniors would be lucky to find a place to set up a tent! Let’s put the GOP’s fraudulent scheme to steal Social Security into perspective. Social Security routinely runs a surplus, call it a profit if you will! It is this ’surplus’ that is coveted by Wall Street! They want to plunder your monies as Bush plunder the taxes you pay every year as a good citizen! They want to ’speculate’ with the only retirement that millions will ever have! They want to enrich themselves on the interest and/or returns! Do you really think these greedy, latter-day Gordan Gecko’s have your interests at heart? Not a frickin’ chance!


Revolutionary Flowerpot Society
http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com

Friday, August 21, 2009

Expose the Rapes in Iran's Prisons

This is from Revolutionary Road (slightly edited).

Women campaign against rape and torture in the Islamic Republic's prisons!

According to the reports which have already been published from the Islamic Republic's prisons, demonstrators arrested in the recent uprising by people demanding their rights, particularly those kept in Kahrizak, have been raped in group and banes and guards have put them under the worst medieval tortures. Many of detainees, whether female or male, have died in rape rooms because of repeated and group rapes and due to rupture of uterus or rectum and intestinal bleeding.

Now Islamic Republic denies rape in its prisons, due to the fear of facing Iranian people and public opinions in Western countries. Broadcasting news of rape and torture of the recent detainees in Iran and across the world has created a wave of disgust and hatred against the Islamic regime. Exposing and fighting against rape and torture in prisons are important tasks of the freedom demanding movement of Iranian people in this struggle.

In the Islamic Republic regime, many women in prisons have been raped and murdered so far and those who have survived, are now buckling under severe physical and psychological damages due to rape and torture. Zahra Kazemi, Zahra Bani Yaghoub, Azar Al Cana'an, Roya Toloui are some of these people. But also young boys and adolescents in prisons have been raped by Islamic regime of Iran. Students who were arrested, accused of protesting, have been raped in prisons by a person(s) or by objects such as bottles.

We want to condemn these crimes. We have to prevent these kinds of disasters by widespread protests. In this revolutionary situation some things have to be done so that victims of these medieval tortures can claim their rights and reveal these crimes. We publish the stories and cases of this terrible crime and send all these cases to organizations, legal authorities and international committees against torture. We do not allow this crime in Iran to be forgotten like what happened in Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Bangladesh or Japan through the passing of the time, nor by allowing speaking about it becoming a taboo.
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It's clear Iran is undergoing upheaval... although the 'election' didn't even involve anyone with real power! There is a civil war when breakdown in government authority occurs : allowing combat-related violence to occur.

The dark story of war – mass rape
http://zoomview.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/the-dark-story-of-war-mass-rape

(The United Nations has accused the Indian Army troops of sexual exploitation, including child abuse, while on peacekeeping duty in Congo. )

the role of rape in conflict
http://www.dancarlin.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=9267
Senior Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:30 am
Posts: 998
Location: Massachusetts, USA
you poor guys, trying to discuss this while looking over your shoulders in case any feminist police show up.

I guess since I'm a girl I'm "allowed" to have an opinion, so for what it's worth:

I would say that the more tactical aspects of rape in war are more of a by product of something it is all but impossible for the people in charge to control. A bunch of men fighting and away from their women folk enter an area of helpless people and no offense guys, but I think human nature is going to result in a bunch of rapes. That doesn't mean all men are naturally rapists, but it doesn't take too large a percentage of soldiers willing to rape for you to have a large number of rapes going on every time this situation comes up.

Look at it this way- the US army has a significant problem keeping the female soldiers safe from being raped by the male soldiers. If our "civilized" country which has every interest in not having this behavior happen still has trouble keeping soldiers from raping their fellow soldiers on our own bases, imagine how hard it would be in a less organized and disciplined situation, like the aftermath of the sacking of a city? Since doing so would seem almost impossible the practical response of most generals I think would be to use this behavior as part of the psychological tactics in getting people to surrender.

I'd say the tactical use of rape springs from the inevitability of its happening and deciding to encourage it instead of trying to stop it. If you tried to stop it and one or two rapes happen you have a discipline problem and it might look to the populace that you've broken your word. On the other hand if you tolerate or encourage it there's not much downside if not all that many soldiers engage in it.

_________________
Vanessa

Rape and War, Gender and Nation, Victims and Victimizers: Helke Sander's BeFreier und Befreite.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27087394_ITM

Portraying mass wartime rape in the documentary: Befreier und Befreite and...
West Virginia University Philological Papers Cohen-Pfister, Laurel September 22, 2004 700+ words ...of the mass rapes in the Balkans. The first, Helke Sander's groundbreaking film BeFreier und Befreite (The Liberators Take Liberties...separated by only half a century. At the time Sander's film on the rape of almost two million German women...

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27087394_ITM
WAR and RAPE: A DIGEST OF REFERENCED ARTICLES
On Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict: Unparalleled military violence
against women at the dawn of the third millennium
Prepared by: Janet M. Eaton, PhD, February 8, 2000
http://www.peace.ca/warandrape.htm

Fifty years after the universal declaration on human rights assured that
the atrocities of world war II would never again be repeated, these
violent and abhorrent war crimes stand as a shameful indictment of male
militarized violence against women at this period in history. And in a
climate where militarism, fundamentalism and neo-liberalism turn a blind
eye to human rights and have contributed to the expansion of armed
conflict around the world, the fear of sexual violence dominates the life
of every woman living in today's war zones.

RAPE OF WOMEN DURING WARTIME

BEFORE, DURING, AND SINCE WORLD WAR II


http://www.religioustolerance.org/war_rape.htm

Rape during recent wars:

* More than 20,000 Muslim girls and women were raped during the religiously-motivated atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in Bosnia. This was mainly during an organized Serbian program of cultural genocide. One goal was to make the women pregnant, and raising their children as Serbs. 10 Another was to terrorize women so that they would flee from their land.
* It has been estimated that Iraqi soldiers raped at least 5,000 Kuwaiti women during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. 11
* During the civil war in Rwanda: "One United Nations report estimated that as many as 500,000 women and girls suffered brutal forms of sexual violence , including gang-rape and sexual mutilation, after which many of them were killed." 11
* "In Algeria, the women of entire villages have been raped and killed. The government estimates that about 1,600 girls and young women have been kidnapped to become sexual slaves by roving bands from armed Islamic groups." 11
* One source referred to rape of Tamil women in Sri Lanka and of women in Somalia, Haiti, Kashmir and Peru. 12,13,14
* Another source referred to rape "in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus, Haiti, Liberia, Somalia and Uganda." 3
* A resolution of the United Methodist Church mentioned rape in the Republic of Georgia. 15

Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions murder as well as cruel treatment such as torture, mutilation and outrages upon personal dignity -- in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault, as well as slavery and the slave trade in all their forms.

Rape was listed in Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter as a "Crime Against Humanity."

At the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, the rape of Tutsi women was found to constitute torture when it was "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or others person acting in an official capacity."

Recently, rape during armed conflict has received a higher priority internationally. "...proceedings have been commenced in the International Court of Justice by Bosnia Hercegovina, criminal proceedings in the domestic courts of, for example, France, Germany and the Bosnian Military Tribunal in Sarajevo, civil actions in the USA... and of course the establishment of a International Criminal Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia." 4

If the strong resistance of the U.S. government is overcome, the new permanent International Criminal Court will give future women victims of rape an opportunity to initiate lawsuits against their attackers and obtain justice. The existence of the Court should cause combatants to fear future prosecution, and thus deter future mass rapes.

( Rather makes the transition of a nation into a 'democratic' farce a bloody mess far outstripping the Terror Policy of 'civilized nations' in 'Rendition' to al Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and many more secret sites concentrated sites of horror generating false confessions - which is what degradation and torture are meant to accomplish, doesn't it ? )

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Posted by opit at 9:36 AM
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