Links for Tuesday, March14th.

UnkaWillbur Mar 14, 2017

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Rand Paul Is Right: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants.

The Necessity of Credibility. “Ridding ourselves of fake news requires having media outlets that are actually worth listening to…”

Anther attack, and a sly one, on the American public education system: NY dropping teacher literacy test amid claims of racism.

EU workplace headscarf ban ‘can be legal’, says ECJ. “Workplace bans on the wearing of “any political, philosophical or religious sign” such as headscarves need not constitute direct discrimination” Seems fair to me, as I regard the reduction of religion in public life as a universal good.

South Korea’s protest culture gets results, but its roots are nothing to envy.

In Nerd News: The BBC have released the trailer for the forthcoming series of Doctor Who, which starts on 15th April 2017.

In a case of textbook Orwellian doublethink, establishment loyalists are pretending they already knew about the shocking Vault 7 revelations.

Say it with me people, “One good distracting clown is worth 1000 conspiracies:” Trump adviser Conway warns of spy microwaves ‘that turn into cameras’…

Moving the (Corporate) Welfare-State Project Forward.

Yet another corporate crime against global human culture: AOL Is Mysteriously Shutting Down the 19-Year-Old Community That Inspired Wikipedia.

Lists: Every Ism After Postmodernism.

Finally, to all our East Coast Readers: Stay Safe!

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Monday GIF-a-thon

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I've been AWOL, sorry about that, big things in life, big things afoot here. More Later. In the meantime, what's your favorite GIFs?

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Keep Them Doggies Rolling

UnkaWillbur - Jun 05, 2017

America's 2017 Derangement Tour continued this week. Starting of with Kathy "PLEASE LOOK AT ME!" Griffith proving that Democrats can be as eliminationist as their fellow conservatives…

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Your Weekend of Weekends.

UnkaWillbur - May 26, 2017

Here' some links to nosh on, to start of your weekend. I hope everyone's weekend is great; me, myself, I'm planning on jumping out of a perfectly…

Ann Watson

Where is our ‘song of the day’, or am I in too soon? ; )
- Unkawillbur
  
  I’m too late, but here we are, at long last… 😀
  - Ann Watson
    
    Ah you are Mr Blue Sky, well done! ; )
Unkawillbur

Your song of the day. Kind of inspirational for me, as I’m off to the DMV this morning.

https://youtu.be/7tJNABQnqBo
- Dosido3
  
  Unka! You need more coffee! Your headline shows it’s Valentine’s Day…it’s actually Pi Day!
  - 17
    
    Thanks. He’s on it now.
  - 17
    
    Or maybe not. It has me locked out saying he’s there editting, but I guess maybe he died in a fiery crash mid-edit. He will be missed.
    - Unkawillbur
      
      Sorry, left the edit screen up, when I left for work.
    - Dosido3
      
      He will rise again! Like Michigan.
- thud
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmpNbqvCznE
- thud
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1A5WBf1EFQ
Ann Watson

NSA routinely monitors Americans’ communications without warrants?
Say it ain’t so!
Wasn’t it ever thus?
- Unkawillbur
  
  Wasn’t it ever thus?
  
  Nope. Fairly recent development. 16 ish years ago.
  - Dosido3
    
    Hmm.
Shohanna

Never heard of DMOZ til now, can’t. E that comprehensive w such limited appeal
- Unkawillbur
  
  It is the original and was the defining directory, before most people knoew there was an internet or World Wide Web. And, while it doesn’t have the scope that Wikipedia evolved, there’s no reason to tear down such an important historical site.
  - Shohanna
    
    That’s true, I am glad they are trying to preserve it from that pov.
17

.Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace In Afghanistan

The underlying logic of the Afghan policy is that in order to prevent the risk of Afghanistan becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks like 9/11, it must be permanently occupied.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/perpetual-war-for-perpetual-peace-in-afghanistan/225866/
17

.U.S. Army Announces Troops Will Stay In Syria After ISIS Defeat

The U.S. Army made it clear that U.S. forces will remain in Syria after freeing Raqqa from ISIS control in order to stabilize the region, but Syrian President Assad’s recent remarks that the U.S. troops are “invaders” could lead to even more complications for the embattled nation.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/u-s-army-announces-troops-will-stay-in-syria-after-isis-defeat/225864/
17

.The Noninterventionist President Conducts Secret Drone War

On Monday, Trump gave new authority to the CIA to run its drone program,a departure from the Obama administration policy of constraining the agency’s paramilitary role in the ever-expanding war on terror.

http://anotherdayintheempire.com/noninterventionist-president-conducts-secret-drone-war/
17

.Are Covert Ops Spinning Free from Presidential Findings (Again)?

Around the same time Donald Trump was dodging all responsibility for the catastrophically botched Yemen raid, he was planning to give his generals more authority to launch such raids on their own, without his approval.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/03/14/are-covert-ops-spinning-free-from-presidential-findings-again/
17

.The Executive Branch Is About to Be ‘Reorganized’ into Oblivion

This was ominous from the first tweet. While everyone was breathlessly awaiting the CBO numbers on the Republican tax-cut plan, the one that was so well-camouflaged beneath gauze and surgical gloves, the president* announced that he would be signing an executive order through which he planned to “reorganize” the executive branch of government. On Monday, not long after the CBO numbers lit the entire healthcare debate aflame again, he made good on his threat. He signed the “Comprehensive Plan For Reorganizing The Executive Branch.” I didn’t like the sound of this at the time, and it sounds even worse now that it’s here.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53848/trump-executive-order-reorganization/
17

.Making Victims Pay

The Trump administration is demanding that Cambodia pay the United States for the brutal, illegal war the US waged there.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/trump-cambodia-debt-forgiveness-vietnam-war-kissinger-nixon/
17

.The Crumbling American Superpower

The catastrophic events around the California Oroville Dam in recent weeks underscores a far more urgent problem. The American Society of Civil Engineers has just released their quadrennial assessment of United States essential infrastructure–roads, clean water supplies, levees, ports, dams, bridges, electric grid. The report gives the nation a near-failing D+ grade. America is coming to resemble the economic infrastructure in the Soviet Union domestically at the collapse of communism during the late 1980’s. The recently-announced Donald Trump proposal to invest $1 trillion over ten years to address the problem, mainly building high-speed trains (to date the USA has not one) doesn’t even come close to the scope of the problem.

http://journal-neo.org/2017/03/14/the-crumbling-american-superpower/
- kreskin
  
  The corporations and the billionaires are international now , they don’t give a rat’s ass about this country , they’ve abandoned it , left it to crumble and rot .
17

.Testing the Principle of Free Speech

A surge in hateful speech toward minorities in the Age of Trump has been met by a pushback from angry activists, sometimes trampling the vital principle of free and open debate, writes Michael Winship.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/14/testing-the-principle-of-free-speech/
- thud
  
  Yeah, civil discourse. That’s the ticket. Wins every time.
EdgarHF

Hello everyone, looks like I missed a little snowfall at home.
- Unkawillbur
  
  [waves enthusiastically] I hope your trip is still going well! Say his to your brother, from us! 😀
  - EdgarHF
    
    Now that I am back on my feet today all is going well. I plan to paint the town tonight.
- IronPyrite_Reborn
  
  Not where I live. It was 93° at my place today.
  - EdgarHF
    
    In the 90s here in Thailand too. I am guessing the snow was bad in Chicago area, where I live, and elsewhere as the storm made the news even here.
all_hail_the_hypno_toad

https://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/982BLR_Edward_James_Olmos_003-e1489469247778-600×265.jpg

EJO back for sequel

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/14/blade-runner-2049-casting-update-edward-james-olmos-returning-gaff/
all_hail_the_hypno_toad

Fuck Scott
You’re better off with your data in the hands of a marketer than a government, says former Sun Microsystems supremo Scott McNealy, because you can change who you buy from, but you can’t easily switch countries.

“A long time ago someone said: ‘You have no privacy – get over it’,” McNealy said. That “someone” was McNealy himself and he now says “I got a lot of grief for that, but it has been absolutely true.”

But the way privacy has eroded has surprised him, he says. “Digital natives are not worried about it [loss of privacy]. Older people are used to seeing governments get scope creep and do more than protecting your liberties and rights. They do education. Health care. Loans.

“The only time people should be worried about privacy is when government does more than protection of their lives and liberties.

“Government is great at the red herring of saying business will know something about you and that is bad. I am not afraid of business. But I am afraid of a bureaucrat who can impact my tax rates or health benefits or what school my kid can go to.”

He adds: “If AT&T screws around with my data, I go to Verizon. If the USA screws with my data, I cannot leave.”

McNealy also feels that businesses’ use of data will inevitably be benign, because data is the only thing that lets them sell in an increasingly digital world. And because they’ll try to sell to us all with or without data.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/14/scott_mcnealy_on_privacy/
- EdgarHF
  
  When are we going to wake to the fact that corporations are the government.
  - Unkawillbur
    
    Nah,the corporations aren’t the government, the people who own the corporations are the government. 🙁
    - kreskin
      
      Get with the times , my man , corporations are people now , they are individuals .
      
      *S
  - kreskin
    
    I already have , quite some time ago … as a matter of fact .
- Unkawillbur
  
  “… get scope creep and do more than protecting your liberties and rights.”
  
  WARNING: Libertarian, Anti-(any)Government Nonsense Ahead.
all_hail_the_hypno_toad

Fuck Oracle too
In a bizarre, fawning letter, Oracle has given America’s broadband watchdog, the FCC, the equivalent of a telco reach-around.

The letter [PDF] from Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz’s office, and signed by senior VP Kenneth Glueck, appears to have been written solely to praise FCC chairman Ajit Pai and his recent actions: a situation made all the more bizarre by the fact that Oracle has nothing to do with the decisions it praises.

“We are optimistic that the FCC under your leadership will take a different approach and are encouraged by the actions you have already taken to date,” the March 13 letter says, leaning forward for a kiss. “We look forward to working with you to reset America’s technology policy in a new pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-American leadership direction.”

In particular, it congratulates Pai for killing off new privacy rules on ISPs that were due to take effect earlier this month, and for shutting down the effort to force cable companies to open up cable boxes to third parties. It also sides fiercely with Pai in criticizing net neutrality rules, in particular the decision to designate ISPs as so-called Title II carriers.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/14/oracle_fcc_net_neutrality/
all_hail_the_hypno_toad

A federal judge is agreeing with the FBI’s contention that publicly disclosing its methods on how it spies on journalists could hamper national security.

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Freedom of the Press Foundation sought FBI procedures surrounding the agency’s protocol when issuing National Security Letters (NSLs) against members of the media. Without a court warrant, an NSL allows the bureau to obtain “subscriber information and toll billing records information, or electronic communication transactional records” from third-party wire or electronic communication providers if such information is “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

The items withheld from the organization, according to US District Judge Haywood Gilliam, included “instructions for managing and conducting cyber investigations,” the “instructions for investigating and charging members of the news media,” an NSL “PowerPoint training presentation,” and other materials in draft form.

Judge Gilliam, in deciding Monday that the FBI does not have to disclose the information sought, ruled (PDF) that the FBI “described with particularity that the withheld documents all contained non-public information about the FBI’s investigative techniques and procedures. These pages not only identified NSLs as an investigative technique but also described information such as the circumstances under which the techniques should be used, how to analyze the information gathered through these techniques, and the current focus of the FBI’s investigations.”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/fbis-methods-to-spy-on-journalists-should-remain-classified-judge-rules/
kreskin

Revelations in Vault # 7 , notice all the demonstrations going on , responsible people out in mass , defending themselves against a tyrannical government , demanding that this shit stop , putting the fear of God into the politicians !
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz .
- 17
  
  All them Panama Papers keep gettin’ in their way.
Unkawillbur

New Links are up!
Unkawillbur

New Links are up!