The Radical Libertarian

Anarchist Kid

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:41:00 +0000

Streisand Effect > Government of France

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:01:00 +0000

The Streisand Effect made a rather powerful government its bitch last weekend. Expect more of this type of thing as the internet becomes ever more encompassing over society.

In April 2013, the radio station attracted attention after the French interior intelligence agency Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur (DCRI) attempted to have an article about the facility removed from the French language Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation asked the intelligence agency what precise part(s) of the article were a problem in the eyes of the intelligence agency, noting that the article closely reflected information in a freely available television broadcast. The DCRI refused to give these details, and repeated its demand for deletion of the article. The Wikimedia Foundation refused to delete the article, and the DCRI pressured Rémi Mathis, a volunteer administrator of the French language Wikipedia and resident of France, into removing the article. The administrator, an employee of the state-owned Bibliothèque nationale de France and president of Wikimédia France, obeyed. According to a statement issued by Wikimédia France on 6 April 2013:
The DCRI summoned a Wikipedia volunteer in their offices on April 4th [2013]. This volunteer, which was one of those having access to the tools that allow the deletion of pages, was forced to delete the article while in the DCRI offices, on the understanding that he would have been held in custody and prosecuted if he did not comply. Under pressure, he had no other choice than to delete the article, despite explaining to the DCRI this is not how Wikipedia works. He warned the other sysops that trying to undelete the article would engage their responsibility before the law. This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices. He was chosen and summoned because he was easily identifiable, given his regular promotional actions of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in France.
Later, the article was restored by another Wikipedia contributor. The French ministry of the interior told the Agence France-Presse that for the moment it did not wish to comment on the incident.] As a result of the controversy, the article became the most-read page on the French Wikipedia, with over 120,000 page views during the weekend of 6/7 April 2013. It was translated into multiple other languages. The French newspaper 20 minutes, Ars Technica, and a posting on Slashdot,[15] noted it as an example of the Streisand effect in action.

You Are A Computer Criminal

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:17:00 +0000

Amidst the Noise

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:35:00 +0000

Your Tax Dollars at Work

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:26:00 +0000

The goober at the beginning of the video really inspires confidence with his "Run, Hide, Fight" advice. Does he mean these separately, or sequentially?

There is advice like turning off the ringtone and vibration on your cellphone. It probably cost $100,000 to get that one suggestion from conception to publication. At the end of the video, they have tips on how to fight back, including such wisdom as "Commit to your actions." Spencer Collier approved this video. He thought it was a good idea. And he is the big boss of the Alabama Department of Homeland Security.

He's worse than worthless, he's detrimental. They all are. This is their standard operating procedure. Get rid of all of it.

Iceland Denies Girl The Right to Use Her Own Name

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:10:00 +0000

Iceland's Ministry of Love is DoublePlusGood:

A 15-year-old is suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. The problem? Blaer, which means "light breeze" in Icelandic, is not on a list approved by the government. Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don't question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay.

2012: Best Year Ever?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:54:00 +0000

The Spectator claims that 2012 was the best year in the history of mankind. They make a good, if not compelling, case. 2012 was definitely a good year for me personally. I wonder if 2013 will be even better?

It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.

We Need Gun Control For The Government, Not The People

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:18:00 +0000

The ATF is now responsible for the shooting death of a Mexican beauty queen. The United States government is trafficking weapons into Mexico, and causing the US-Mexico border to be the deadliest border in the world. Yes, deadlier than the Afghan-Pakistan border, and deadlier than the DMZ between the DPRK and the ROK. The people don't need gun control. It is the state that needs gun control:

A Fast and Furious gun found at the murder scene of Mexican beauty queen Maria Susana Flores, appears to have been purchased by embattled ATF supervisor George Gillett. Flores was used as a human shield before she was shot and killed by Mexican cartels during a shootout with the Mexican military. According to documents obtained by Senator Chuck Grassley, it appears Gillett purchased a number of different firearms at a gun dealership in Phoenix as part of Operation Fast and Furious. It also appears Gillett lied on 4473 forms by using an address that does not lead to his residence, which is a felony.

Breaking the Taboo

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Quoting Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:07:00 +0000

Keynes Was Pro-War

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:54:00 +0000

Paul Krugman's hero argues for war and armament production:

The EU is in its Second Recession Since 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:05:00 +0000

Color me unsurprised:

Economic output in the euro zone fell 0.1 percent in the quarter, following a 0.2-percent drop in the second quarter. Those two quarters of contraction put the euro zone's 9.4 trillion euro ($12 trillion) economy in recession, although Italy and Spain have been contracting for a year already and Greece is suffering an outright depression. A rebound in Europe is still far off. The debt crisis that began in Greece in late 2009is still reverberating around the globe and holding back a lasting recovery from the Great Recession of 2008/2009 in much of the world. "That was the last good number Germany for the time being," said Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank. "The business climate ... has caved in." Most economists expect Germany to contract in the fourth quarter for the first time since the end of 2011. Where Germany goes, France is likely to follow and economists expect its economy to shrink in the October-to-December period.

How a Vicious Circle of Self-Interest Sank a California City

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:12:00 +0000

From Reuters:

Yet on close examination, the city's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America's largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers. Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino's city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer. Unions poured money into city council elections, and the city council poured money into union pay and pensions. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), which manages pension plans for San Bernardino and many other cities, encouraged ever-sweeter benefits. Investment bankers sold clever bond deals to pay for them.

The Presidential Debate

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:03:00 +0000

No, Not Detroit!

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 01:11:00 +0000

Vice Reports on The Radical Left in Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Government Doesn't Know Difference Between Compression and Encryption; Endangers 2.4 Million People's Identities

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 21:26:00 +0000

This is terrible. Of course, don't expect anyone to suffer any consequences over this:

TORONTO — Elections Ontario staff who lost two memory sticks with the personal information of millions of voters did not encrypt the files because they didn’t know what encryption meant, privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian said Tuesday. “They went online, they Googled it, and the closest they could discern was that encryption means zipping the data, which means compressing the data, not encrypting it,” Cavoukian said at a press conference. The missing USB keys included voters’ full names, addresses, date of birth, gender and whether they voted in the last election — information that is a “gold mine” for identity thieves, warned Cavoukian. “Cases of identity theft often take well over a year before they transpire,” she said. “They lay low, wait until the story is yesterday’s news, and then hit hard, so you have to be vigilant.” The lost data is from about 2.4 million voters in 20-25 electoral districts, but because Elections Ontario can’t say which districts, four million voters in 49 ridings are being advised to keep an eye on their bank statements. Elections Ontario discovered the “massive breach” in late April, when two memory sticks went missing, but it didn’t tell the public until July 17, prompting investigations by the information and privacy commissioner and provincial police. Even worse, said Cavoukian, the agency went right back to using USB keys without enabling the encryption software just four days after realizing it had lost the two other data storage devices. “I hit the roof, as you might imagine,” she said. “On what planet do you do that, do you do the same thing again and not encrypt the data? It’s baffling to me.”

I'll tell you what planet you do that on: Planet government!

Vice.com: All The Kids Are Libertarians

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:09:00 +0000

Oh yes they are.

Voters ranging in age from 18 to 29, the poll found, were neither here nor there on a traditional left/right political spectrum, and many displayed lukewarm feelings towards liberalism. Few, for instance, put faith in the government’s ability to stimulate the economy through spending (what’s known as Keynesian economics), less than half thought the government should provide free health care to those who can’t afford it, and a remarkably small number—just 28 percent—thought the government should prioritize environmental concerns like global warming over economic concerns. At the same time, these voters backed away from social and neo-conservative ideals: They weren’t anti-gay, they didn’t like religion in their politics, and they tended to pooh-pooh preemptive war.    What remained, political scientists and pollsters noted, looked an awful lot like the silhouette of libertarianism, a political philosophy that champions small government and tolerant social attitudes (think Soundgarden’s “My Wave”) and—that especially for youngsters—is fueled by a deep distrust of mainstream politics.  

Krugman Gets Pwned on Canadian Healthcare

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:41:00 +0000

Krugman gets owned by Canadians about the Canadian healthcare system. Sorry that it has the "Conservative News" logo at the end... I couldn't find another source.

4th of July 2012 Flag Burning

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:09:00 +0000

Pistol Packer Pwns Pigs

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:52:00 +0000

This video is brilliant. I bet that if this guy didn't have his camera phone recording, the pigs probably would have beat him up, thrown him in jail, and falsely charged him with assaulting the cops. I find it very interesting, and instructive, to witness how the most effective weapon for personal protection against the state is not a gun, but a video camera.

Democracy: The Allah That Failed

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 17:21:00 +0000

TAREK’S SENTENCING STATEMENT

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:34:00 +0000

Read to Judge O’Toole during his sentencing, April 12th 2012.

In the name of God the most gracious the most merciful Exactly four years ago this month I was finishing my work shift at a local hospital. As I was walking to my car I was approached by two federal agents. They said that I had a choice to make: I could do things the easy way, or I could do them the hard way. The “easy ” way, as they explained, was that I would become an informant for the government, and if I did so I would never see the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. As for the hard way, this is it. Here I am, having spent the majority of the four years since then in a solitary cell the size of a small closet, in which I am locked down for 23 hours each day. The FBI and these prosecutors worked very hard-and the government spent millions of tax dollars – to put me in that cell, keep me there, put me on trial, and finally to have me stand here before you today to be sentenced to even more time in a cell. In the weeks leading up to this moment, many people have offered suggestions as to what I should say to you. Some said I should plead for mercy in hopes of a light sentence, while others suggested I would be hit hard either way. But what I want to do is just talk about myself for a few minutes. When I refused to become an informant, the government responded by charging me with the “crime” of supporting the mujahideen fighting the occupation of Muslim countries around the world. Or as they like to call them, “terrorists.” I wasn’t born in a Muslim country, though. I was born and raised right here in America and this angers many people: how is it that I can be an American and believe the things I believe, take the positions I take? Everything a man is exposed to in his environment becomes an ingredient that shapes his outlook, and I’m no different. So, in more ways than one, it’s because of America that I am who I am. When I was six, I began putting together a massive collection of comic books. Batman implanted a concept in my mind, introduced me to a paradigm as to how the world is set up: that there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and there are those who step up to defend the oppressed. This resonated with me so much that throughout the rest of my childhood, I gravitated towards any book that reflected that paradigm – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I even saw an ehical dimension to The Catcher in the Rye. By the time I began high school and took a real history class, I was learning just how real that paradigm is in the world. I learned about the Native Americans and what befell them at the hands of European settlers. I learned about how the descendents of those European settlers were in turn oppressed under the tyranny of King George III. I read about Paul Revere, Tom Paine, and how Americans began an armed insurgency against British forces – an insurgency we now celebrate as the American revolutionary war. As a kid I even went on school field trips just blocks away from where we sit now. I learned about Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown, and the fight against slavery in this country. I learned about Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, and the struggles of the labor unions, working class, and poor. I learned about Anne Frank, the Nazis, and how they persecuted minorities and imprisoned dissidents. I learned about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the civil rights struggle. I learned about Ho Chi Minh, and how the Vietnamese fought for decades to liberate themselves from one invader after another. I learned about Nelson Mandela and the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Everything I learned in those years confirmed what I was beginning to learn when I was six: that throughout history, there has been a constant struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. With each struggle I learned about, I found myself consistently siding with the oppressed, and consistently respecting those who stepped up to defend them -regardless of nationality, regardless of religion. And I never threw my class notes away. As I stand here speaking, they are in a neat pile in my bedroom closet at home. From all the historical figures I learned about, one stood out above the rest. I was impressed be many things about Malcolm X, but above all, I was fascinated by the idea of transformation, his transformation. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “X” by Spike Lee, it’s over three and a half hours long, and the Malcolm at the beginning is different from the Malcolm at the end. He starts off as an illiterate criminal, but ends up a husband, a father, a protective and eloquent leader for his people, a disciplined Muslim performing the Hajj in Makkah, and finally, a martyr. Malcolm’s life taught me that Islam is not something inherited; it’s not a culture or ethnicity. It’s a way of life, a state of mind anyone can choose no matter where they come from or how they were raised. This led me to look deeper into Islam, and I was hooked. I was just a teenager, but Islam answered the question that the greatest scientific minds were clueless about, the question that drives the rich & famous to depression and suicide from being unable to answer: what is the purpose of life? Why do we exist in this Universe? But it also answered the question of how we’re supposed to exist. And since there’s no hierarchy or priesthood, I could directly and immediately begin digging into the texts of the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, to begin the journey of understanding what this was all about, the implications of Islam for me as a human being, as an individual, for the people around me, for the world; and the more I learned, the more I valued Islam like a piece of gold. This was when I was a teen, but even today, despite the pressures of the last few years, I stand here before you, and everyone else in this courtroom, as a very proud Muslim. With that, my attention turned to what was happening to other Muslims in different parts of the world. And everywhere I looked, I saw the powers that be trying to destroy what I loved. I learned what the Soviets had done to the Muslims of Afghanistan. I learned what the Serbs had done to the Muslims of Bosnia. I learned what the Russians were doing to the Muslims of Chechnya. I learned what Israel had done in Lebanon – and what it continues to do in Palestine – with the full backing of the United States. And I learned what America itself was doing to Muslims. I learned about the Gulf War, and the depleted uranium bombs that killed thousands and caused cancer rates to skyrocket across Iraq. I learned about the American-led sanctions that prevented food, medicine, and medical equipment from entering Iraq, and how – according to the United Nations – over half a million children perished as a result. I remember a clip from a ’60 Minutes‘ interview of Madeline Albright where she expressed her view that these dead children were “worth it.” I watched on September 11th as a group of people felt driven to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings from their outrage at the deaths of these children. I watched as America then attacked and invaded Iraq directly. I saw the effects of ’Shock & Awe’ in the opening day of the invasion – the children in hospital wards with shrapnel from American missiles sticking but of their foreheads (of course, none of this was shown on CNN). I learned about the town of Haditha, where 24 Muslims – including a 76-year old man in a wheelchair, women, and even toddlers – were shot up and blown up in their bedclothes as the slept by US Marines. I learned about Abeer al-Janabi, a fourteen-year old Iraqi girl gang-raped by five American soldiers, who then shot her and her family in the head, then set fire to their corpses. I just want to point out, as you can see, Muslim women don’t even show their hair to unrelated men. So try to imagine this young girl from a conservative village with her dress torn off, being sexually assaulted by not one, not two, not three, not four, but five soldiers. Even today, as I sit in my jail cell, I read about the drone strikes which continue to kill Muslims daily in places like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Just last month, we all heard about the seventeen Afghan Muslims – mostly mothers and their kids – shot to death by an American soldier, who also set fire to their corpses. These are just the stories that make it to the headlines, but one of the first concepts I learned in Islam is that of loyalty, of brotherhood – that each Muslim woman is my sister, each man is my brother, and together, we are one large body who must protect each other. In other words, I couldn’t see these things beings done to my brothers & sisters – including by America – and remain neutral. My sympathy for the oppressed continued, but was now more personal, as was my respect for those defending them. I mentioned Paul Revere – when he went on his midnight ride, it was for the purpose of warning the people that the British were marching to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, then on to Concord to confiscate the weapons stored there by the Minuteman. By the time they got to Concord, they found the Minuteman waiting for them, weapons in hand. They fired at the British, fought them, and beat them. From that battle came the American Revolution. There’s an Arabic word to describe what those Minutemen did that day. That word is: JIHAD, and this is what my trial was about. All those videos and translations and childish bickering over ‘Oh, he translated this paragraph’ and ‘Oh, he edited that sentence,’ and all those exhibits revolved around a single issue: Muslims who were defending themselves against American soldiers doing to them exactly what the British did to America. It was made crystal clear at trial that I never, ever plotted to “kill Americans” at shopping malls or whatever the story was. The government’s own witnesses contradicted this claim, and we put expert after expert up on that stand, who spent hours dissecting my every written word, who explained my beliefs. Further, when I was free, the government sent an undercover agent to prod me into one of their little “terror plots,” but I refused to participate. Mysteriously, however, the jury never heard this. So, this trial was not about my position on Muslims killing American civilians. It was about my position on Americans killing Muslim civilians, which is that Muslims should defend their lands from foreign invaders – Soviets, Americans, or Martians. This is what I believe. It’s what I’ve always believed, and what I will always believe. This is not terrorism, and it’s not extremism. It’s what the arrows on that seal above your head represent: defense of the homeland. So, I disagree with my lawyers when they say that you don’t have to agree with my beliefs – no. Anyone with commonsense and humanity has no choice but to agree with me. If someone breaks into your home to rob you and harm your family, logic dictates that you do whatever it takes to expel that invader from your home. But when that home is a Muslim land, and that invader is the US military, for some reason the standards suddenly change. Common sense is renamed ”terrorism” and the people defending themselves against those who come to kill them from across the ocean become “the terrorists” who are ”killing Americans.” The mentality that America was victimized with when British soldiers walked these streets 2 ½ centuries ago is the same mentality Muslims are victimized by as American soldiers walk their streets today. It’s the mentality of colonialism. When Sgt. Bales shot those Afghans to death last month, all of the focus in the media was on him-his life, his stress, his PTSD, the mortgage on his home-as if he was the victim. Very little sympathy was expressed for the people he actually killed, as if they’re not real, they’re not humans. Unfortunately, this mentality trickles down to everyone in society, whether or not they realize it. Even with my lawyers, it took nearly two years of discussing, explaining, and clarifying before they were finally able to think outside the box and at least ostensibly accept the logic in what I was saying. Two years! If it took that long for people so intelligent, whose job it is to defend me, to de-program themselves, then to throw me in front of a randomly selected jury under the premise that they’re my “impartial peers,” I mean, come on. I wasn’t tried before a jury of my peers because with the mentality gripping America today, I have no peers. Counting on this fact, the government prosecuted me – not because they needed to, but simply because they could. I learned one more thing in history class: America has historically supported the most unjust policies against its minorities – practices that were even protected by the law – only to look back later and ask: ’what were we thinking?’ Slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese during World War II – each was widely accepted by American society, each was defended by the Supreme Court. But as time passed and America changed, both people and courts looked back and asked ’What were we thinking?’ Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the South African government, and given a life sentence. But time passed, the world changed, they realized how oppressive their policies were, that it was not he who was the terrorist, and they released him from prison. He even became president. So, everything is subjective - even this whole business of “terrorism” and who is a “terrorist.” It all depends on the time and place and who the superpower happens to be at the moment. In your eyes, I’m a terrorist, and it’s perfectly reasonable that I be standing here in an orange jumpsuit. But one day, America will change and people will recognize this day for what it is. They will look at how hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed and maimed by the US military in foreign countries, yet somehow I’m the one going to prison for “conspiring to kill and maim” in those countries – because I support the Mujahidin defending those people. They will look back on how the government spent millions of dollars to imprison me as a ”terrorist,” yet if we were to somehow bring Abeer al-Janabi back to life in the moment she was being gang-raped by your soldiers, to put her on that witness stand and ask her who the “terrorists” are, she sure wouldn’t be pointing at me. The government says that I was obsessed with violence, obsessed with ”killing Americans.” But, as a Muslim living in these times, I can think of a lie no more ironic. -Tarek Mehanna 4/12/12

The Union: The Business Behind Getting High

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:35:00 +0000

Politician Suddenly Realizes System is Broken

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron Kinney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:01:00 +0000