Category Archives: Politics

intimidation, a poster from Despair.com

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Intimidation. Any questions? That's me on the right.

From the fine line of motivational office decor at Despair.com.

aliens arrested in Roswell

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The Transition of Michael Jackson 

It had to happen sooner or later! From The Register, via Fark.

It appears that the black helicopter brigade were right all along about Area 51, since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operatives this week arrested 15 aliens at the facility who were, chillingly, in the process of painting military aircraft when the net closed.

Alien autopsy, let's see if they can find out what happened to his career

That’s according to an official ICE report under the splendid headline “ICE arrests 15 aliens in Roswell working for US military contractor“.

The aliens in question were described as 3alEinCrEw“determined to be illegally residing and working in the United States” and will be sent back to their place of origin.

Stay vigilant. ®

TWAT: the war against tees, Bush loses a round

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So I guess that means the terrorists win. Meet the tiny tee terrorist.

Zachary Guiles, the tiny tee terrorist

and his weapon of mass destruction

Chickenhawk In Chief T-shirt! Christmas is only four months away!

Thirteen year old Zachary Guiles wore this t-shirt to school one day, thinking no doubt that he was giving The Man the finger.

But The Man don’t like to be fingered.

Next thing you know, Zach‘s cool, antiestablishment shirt is festooned with duct tape censoring out parts of the obvious message. I’m not making a great leap when I say that the coke lines were probably on the no-fly list, and perhaps the words “World Domination Tour” and maybe even “Chickenhawk In Chief“.

An appeals court in New York found that Zachary’s constitutional rights were violated when officials at his Vermont school made him stick duct tape over parts of the T-shirt. The shirt also said the president was undertaking a “world domination tour” and showed a picture of his head superimposed on a chicken’s body, along with cocaine, a razor blade and a martini glass. Zachary was suspended for a day, but continued to wear the T-shirt to school, complete with duct tape.

and rightly so; covering up the occurrance is nothing more than capitulation to censorship, so I am very glad that our young freedom fighter Zach bore the scars of his battle proudly.

But he did not bear them lightly, nor did he bear them alone.

Lawyers for Williamstown middle high school argued the images contravened the school’s ban on clothes promoting drink and drugs, but the court rejected the idea on the grounds that the T-shirt expressed “an anti-drug view”. Mr Bush has spoken of his battles with alcohol earlier in his life.

The T-shirt “uses harsh rhetoric and imagery to express disagreement with the president’s policies and to impugn his character”, the court ruled, but the images “are not plainly offensive as a matter of law”.

“The standard that the court set was that a kid has free-speech rights as long as the expression of those rights doesn’t upset the normal workings of a school,” said Allen Gilbert, of the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case.

Zachary said: “I think this is a very good sign that even with the current administration … there can still be a justice that allows free speech.”

He sounds almost as surprised as me!

TWAT: what the terrorists want, and how not to give it to them

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Never Forget 

This is from Bruce Schneier, a man after my own shrivelled heart. Looking around the globe at the hysterical overreactions on the part of individuals, corporate staff, and governments, he concludes that the terrorists are not the losers in TWAT: we are.

I’d like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute.

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we’re doing exactly what the terrorists want.

Go on and read the rest before you board so much as a skateboard.

British government censors itself

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it could happenSelf-censorship is the most dangerous and insidious kind of censorship, as well as the most risible. Here we see a perfect example of a snake swallowing its own tail and vanishing in a puff of laughter.

BoingBoing reports that the British government, as part of an initiative to encourage and demonstrate connectivity and technological sophistication at a deep level in public service, has posted a video to YouTube. Well bully for them.

Because another branch of that selfsame department whose incredible culture of communication has “released efficiencies by standardisation, simplification and sharing, broadening and deepening of government’s professionalism in terms of the planning, delivery, management, skills and governance of IT enabled change,” has contacted YouTube and gotten the video removed, because it was posted without permission of the copyright holder. Itself.

No, I’m serious. Here’s the report:

UK government censors YouTube vid it posted itself

The UK cabinet office has censored a video that another branch of government had previously posted off of YouTube — ironically, the video was about how the government could be more coordinated:

A video called Transformational Government can no longer be viewed on the site, instead users get a box of red text stating: “This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner COI Television because its content was used without permission.”

COI Television is actually part of the Cabinet Office and the further irony of the video being about transformational government was not lost on one critic.

A spokesman for independent body Public Sector Forums, told silicon.com: “The COI is part of the Cabinet Office. So it looks like the Cabinet Office’s initiative has fallen at the first hurdle and ironically, it’s thanks to a lack of joined-upness between parts of its own ministry.” LINK

May I just note the fact that we already have a word, “connectedness,” which not only expresses the same thought as the expression “joined-upness” but also sounds far less like it came from someone taking remedial breathing class for the second time.

For those who love to slow down to look at traffic wrecks, here is the link to the dead YouTube. Nobody cared enough to stick it on GoogleVids; I checked. For those of you who prefer to watch wrecks in progress, here is the remaining video in the series. The clock is obviously ticking on this one, though, so get your chewy, bureaucratic joined-upness while it’s hawt!