This is an interesting article from www.sweetness-light.com about a conservative woman being elected in Latin America. This follows this post about problems in Left-Wing Venezuela. To get more stories like this, click here
Costa Rica Elects Right-Wing Woman Prez
From (a surely outraged) Associated Press:
Costa Rica elects 1st woman president in landslide
By Marianela Jimenez,
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Costa Ricans have elected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after campaigning to continue free market policies in Central America’s most stable nation.
With most of the votes from Sunday’s election counted, Laura Chinchilla held a 22-point lead over her closest rival. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.
"Today we are making history," said Chinchilla, who will be the fifth Latin American woman to serve as president when she takes office in May. "The Costa Rican people have given me their confidence, and I will not betray it." ..
Arias’ economic policies helped insulate Costa Rica from the world economic crisis as he kept a high profile on the world stage as a negotiator in Honduras’ political crisis after a coup deposed President Manuel Zelaya in June.
Critics of the Arias government, in which Chinchilla served as vice president, contended its policies catered to big developers to boost the economy at the cost of the nation’s fragile ecosystems.
But most Costa Ricans were reluctant to shake up the status quo in a country with relatively high salaries, the longest life expectancy in Latin America, a thriving ecotourism industry and near-universal literacy.
Chinchilla, the mother of a teenage son, is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She appealed both to Costa Ricans seeking a fresh face and those reluctant to risk the unknown…
This is wrong in so many ways. At least according to our establishment media.
A pro-capitalist candidate wins in South America — in a landslide. And she’s ‘anti-Green’? And she’s a woman?
(We thought all right-wingers were all chauvinist pigs.)
You can bet we will hear as little about this as possible from our media masters.
After all, she’s no Hillary Clinton.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Show ACORN the Money
A timely article from www.biggovernment.com on this year's possible census taker, ACORN. This follows this previous post about how to report illegal aliens who might try and SKEW the census numbers and this Census Action Alert.Remember, if you know any Census workers, make sure that they are reporting illegal aliens.For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog
Show ACORN the Money
by Publius
From The American Spectator:
ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.
ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.
The $3.99 billion comes from a congressional slush fund known as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) $48.5 billion fiscal 2011 budget. CDBG grants, which are awarded to states and localities, pass indirectly to ACORN.
How is more funding of ACORN possible when Congress passed a ban on funding the group and its affiliates just last year?
Congress has already hinted it might vote to restore funding to ACORN. On Dec. 8 the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of ACORN.
And in December federal Judge Nina Gershon restored federal funding of ACORN by issuing a temporary injunction against the congressional funding ban. The Brooklyn-based Gershon, a Bill Clinton appointee, determined that depriving ACORN of taxpayer dollars was an unconstitutional “bill of attainder” that singled out ACORN for punishment without trial.
You might be familiar with Gershon’s oeuvre. In 1999 she ruled then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had no right to cut off city funding of the Brooklyn Museum of Art when it displayed dead animals and a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung.
Gershon’s order covered the federal government’s temporary spending legislation that expired Dec. 18 but ACORN is asking that the injunction be modified to cover the remainder of fiscal 2010, which ends Sept. 30. If the litigation drags on, ACORN will undoubtedly seek another modification to cover fiscal 2011.
Read the whole article here.
Show ACORN the Money
by Publius
From The American Spectator:
ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.
ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.
The $3.99 billion comes from a congressional slush fund known as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) $48.5 billion fiscal 2011 budget. CDBG grants, which are awarded to states and localities, pass indirectly to ACORN.
How is more funding of ACORN possible when Congress passed a ban on funding the group and its affiliates just last year?
Congress has already hinted it might vote to restore funding to ACORN. On Dec. 8 the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of ACORN.
And in December federal Judge Nina Gershon restored federal funding of ACORN by issuing a temporary injunction against the congressional funding ban. The Brooklyn-based Gershon, a Bill Clinton appointee, determined that depriving ACORN of taxpayer dollars was an unconstitutional “bill of attainder” that singled out ACORN for punishment without trial.
You might be familiar with Gershon’s oeuvre. In 1999 she ruled then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had no right to cut off city funding of the Brooklyn Museum of Art when it displayed dead animals and a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung.
Gershon’s order covered the federal government’s temporary spending legislation that expired Dec. 18 but ACORN is asking that the injunction be modified to cover the remainder of fiscal 2010, which ends Sept. 30. If the litigation drags on, ACORN will undoubtedly seek another modification to cover fiscal 2011.
Read the whole article here.
Ethnic cleansing in South Central L.A.?
An interesting post from Steve Sailer about relations in Los Angeles, which follows this post here about a very intersting book review. You can continue to get interesting posts like this by subscribing here.
Ethnic cleansing in South Central L.A.?
One of the more controversial LA area questions over the last decade was whether or not Latino and black gangs were fighting a low-level ethnic cleansing struggle in the mixed ethnicity slums, as blacks often alleged. Civic leaders, such as LAPD chief William Bratton vociferously denied it, as well they might considering potential repercussions.Slowly, the story is coming out in court cases. My guess is that the answer will turn out to be: Yes, but only in certain times and places, often depending upon the whim of local gang leaders.From the LA Times' ace crime reporter Sam Quinones:
Six Florencia 13 gang members sentenced to life in prisonCourt action may close the door on a rampage that began in 2004 and evolved into what some residents saw as a race war.
By Sam QuinonesThe sentencing of six Florencia 13 gang members to life in prison appears to bring to a close a prolonged and terrifying spate of violence in the Florence-Firestone district allegedly brought on by orders from a prison gang member in solitary confinement 700 miles away.Beginning in 2004, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area north of Watts [unincorporated parts of LA County are patrolled by LA Sheriffs rather than LAPD] was the site of one of the region's worst gang sieges since the early 1990s, evolving into what some residents felt was a race war.The violence left dozens of people dead, including many with no gang affiliation, and required enormous county resources to combat. ...U.S. District Judge David Carter sentenced Florencia member Francisco Flores, 24, to life in prison on Wednesday, saying that he "preyed on victims because they were black and for no other reason," according to a U.S. attorney's office news release. ..Their trial, which took place in federal court in Santa Ana in 2008, grew from an indictment of 104 Florencia gang members on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to sell drugs and murder.Of those indicted, 94 have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. Four more await trial; two have died and four are fugitives.The case showed the remarkable power the Mexican Mafia prison gang holds over Southern California Latino street gangs. Prosecutors alleged that Mexican Mafia member Arturo "Tablas" Castellanos essentially created a crime wave in the Florence-Firestone district.Castellanos was not indicted because he is already serving a life prison term in a maximum security cell in Pelican Bay State Prison. He hasn't been on the streets since 1979.Yet he wrote letters, introduced as evidence at the trial, that presumed to control a street gang, most of whose members had never seen him.Castellanos ordered gang members to stop rampant infighting; to tax drug dealers in their neighborhoods, as well as prostitutes, fruit vendors and vendors of phony ID cards in nearby Huntington Park; and to funnel the proceeds to him and other mafia members. He also ordered the gang to attack the local Crips gang, whose members are black."The Mexican Mafia has a powerful grasp on these [Latino] gangs," said Peter Hernandez, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case."The prison system is a segregated place. Those rules and letters from Castellanos attempted to adhere those prison rules to the street," he said.As Castellanos' letters appeared on the street in the fall and winter of 2004, Florencia 13 erupted in a spate of violence against African Americans."They just went out and started shooting" at black people, Hernandez said.East Coast Crips responded with shootings of their own, often targeting Latinos who were not gang members.Few actual gang members died. Instead, residents said, they lived amid a race war.Tapped cellular phone calls introduced as evidence at the trial tracked Florencia members driving the streets looking for people to shoot.Black men, in particular, reported not walking to the store for groceries or riding bikes.Florence-Firestone, with a population of 60,000, had 43 homicides in 2005.In contrast, there have only been three homicides in Florence-Firestone neighborhood over the last seven months, so the situation there is much improved.And here's Quinones's latest, on the testimony of a different Mexican Mafia leader, one who must have watched The Godfather trilogy a lot. I bet he identified with Al Pacino's character:
Real tried to break from his family and go straight, even receiving First Communion alone at 17, he said. But, "every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.
Ethnic cleansing in South Central L.A.?
One of the more controversial LA area questions over the last decade was whether or not Latino and black gangs were fighting a low-level ethnic cleansing struggle in the mixed ethnicity slums, as blacks often alleged. Civic leaders, such as LAPD chief William Bratton vociferously denied it, as well they might considering potential repercussions.Slowly, the story is coming out in court cases. My guess is that the answer will turn out to be: Yes, but only in certain times and places, often depending upon the whim of local gang leaders.From the LA Times' ace crime reporter Sam Quinones:
Six Florencia 13 gang members sentenced to life in prisonCourt action may close the door on a rampage that began in 2004 and evolved into what some residents saw as a race war.
By Sam QuinonesThe sentencing of six Florencia 13 gang members to life in prison appears to bring to a close a prolonged and terrifying spate of violence in the Florence-Firestone district allegedly brought on by orders from a prison gang member in solitary confinement 700 miles away.Beginning in 2004, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area north of Watts [unincorporated parts of LA County are patrolled by LA Sheriffs rather than LAPD] was the site of one of the region's worst gang sieges since the early 1990s, evolving into what some residents felt was a race war.The violence left dozens of people dead, including many with no gang affiliation, and required enormous county resources to combat. ...U.S. District Judge David Carter sentenced Florencia member Francisco Flores, 24, to life in prison on Wednesday, saying that he "preyed on victims because they were black and for no other reason," according to a U.S. attorney's office news release. ..Their trial, which took place in federal court in Santa Ana in 2008, grew from an indictment of 104 Florencia gang members on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to sell drugs and murder.Of those indicted, 94 have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. Four more await trial; two have died and four are fugitives.The case showed the remarkable power the Mexican Mafia prison gang holds over Southern California Latino street gangs. Prosecutors alleged that Mexican Mafia member Arturo "Tablas" Castellanos essentially created a crime wave in the Florence-Firestone district.Castellanos was not indicted because he is already serving a life prison term in a maximum security cell in Pelican Bay State Prison. He hasn't been on the streets since 1979.Yet he wrote letters, introduced as evidence at the trial, that presumed to control a street gang, most of whose members had never seen him.Castellanos ordered gang members to stop rampant infighting; to tax drug dealers in their neighborhoods, as well as prostitutes, fruit vendors and vendors of phony ID cards in nearby Huntington Park; and to funnel the proceeds to him and other mafia members. He also ordered the gang to attack the local Crips gang, whose members are black."The Mexican Mafia has a powerful grasp on these [Latino] gangs," said Peter Hernandez, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case."The prison system is a segregated place. Those rules and letters from Castellanos attempted to adhere those prison rules to the street," he said.As Castellanos' letters appeared on the street in the fall and winter of 2004, Florencia 13 erupted in a spate of violence against African Americans."They just went out and started shooting" at black people, Hernandez said.East Coast Crips responded with shootings of their own, often targeting Latinos who were not gang members.Few actual gang members died. Instead, residents said, they lived amid a race war.Tapped cellular phone calls introduced as evidence at the trial tracked Florencia members driving the streets looking for people to shoot.Black men, in particular, reported not walking to the store for groceries or riding bikes.Florence-Firestone, with a population of 60,000, had 43 homicides in 2005.In contrast, there have only been three homicides in Florence-Firestone neighborhood over the last seven months, so the situation there is much improved.And here's Quinones's latest, on the testimony of a different Mexican Mafia leader, one who must have watched The Godfather trilogy a lot. I bet he identified with Al Pacino's character:
Real tried to break from his family and go straight, even receiving First Communion alone at 17, he said. But, "every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tea Party Movie - Johnny Tremain **Bumped**
Since there are a lot of Tea Party events going on http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/nationwide-tea-parties.html, in this era of Big Deficits and Taxation
You can click these sites to get started and see what IS going on.
I wanted to let you know about this movie that might get you in the spirit of things.
You can get it from your library's Interlibrary loan dept. here
You can get it from your library's Interlibrary loan dept. here
or from amazon here
or from your video store!
or from your video store!
And for more Posts like this click here
Looking for a way to make the American Revolution come alive? Based on Esther Forbes's book of the same name, Johnny Tremain takes place in Boston from July 1773 through April 1775, and tells the story of a young apprentice silversmith drawn into a fight for human rights. When an accident cripples Johnny Tremain's hand and ends his hopes of becoming a great silversmith, Tremain finds himself without work and accused of a crime he did not commit. Sons of Liberty members Paul Revere and Josiah Quincy are outraged by the circumstantial case against Tremain, agree to represent him free of charge, and win his acquittal in court. Through association with his new friends, Tremain begins to better understand the current political climate, and eventually joins them in the battle for freedom. Tremain's involvement in the emptying of British tea into Boston Harbor, the arrival of the Redcoats in Boston, and the beginnings of the American Revolution at Concord is powerful and moving. The costuming is splendid, the music patriotic, and the dialogue well crafted.The film stars Hal Stalmaster as Johnny Tremain, costars Luana Patten and Jeff York, and runs 80 minutes. This classic Disney film is wonderful entertainment and a fairly faithful representation of a crucial period in American history. (Ages 8 and older)
Return to the days that sparked the American Revolution, now on Disney DVD for the first time! Meet young Johnny Tremain, a silversmith's apprentice with dreams of learning the trade and making his own way. When a terrible injury ends his hopes, he joins the emerging Sons Of Liberty. The Redcoats are coming as you journey back to the Boston Tea Party, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and Lexington Green, where tyranny was vanquished by an idea -- freedom for all! Based on the classic novel by Esther Forbes, you won't want to miss one historic moment of Disney's classic adventure and liberty's rising light.
Return to the days that sparked the American Revolution, now on Disney DVD for the first time! Meet young Johnny Tremain, a silversmith's apprentice with dreams of learning the trade and making his own way. When a terrible injury ends his hopes, he joins the emerging Sons Of Liberty. The Redcoats are coming as you journey back to the Boston Tea Party, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and Lexington Green, where tyranny was vanquished by an idea -- freedom for all! Based on the classic novel by Esther Forbes, you won't want to miss one historic moment of Disney's classic adventure and liberty's rising light.
Internet Filters—Private Sector First Amendment Workaround, or Gov't Censorship In Disguise?
A timely article from James Fulford of www.vdare.com about internet censorship, particularly from corporate places of work. Most businesses will allow news media in that they deem fit while filtering out what they don't want and of course this is something that is hard to complain about because, even if you are getting your work done, they seem to view internet viewing as time wasting as opposed to radio listening or water cooler chatting. The article below shows the bias that some places are allowing. For the consequences of bias click here and for more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog
Internet Filters—Private Sector First Amendment Workaround, or Gov't Censorship In Disguise?
[See also The Fulford File: VDARE.COM Censored by Corporate Software]
If you're reading this, you're lucky enough to live in a free country, but also lucky enough to have a free computer. A lot of people are not that lucky.
Internet filtering has become a problem for us, because our heterodox opinions, frequently on subjects where any opinion at all can get you in trouble, have led us to be classed by our enemies as "haters." (We are not “haters”, and do not advocate or commit anti-immigrant violence, which tends to be committed by the same people who commit violence against non-immigrants.)
However, some people seem to have gotten the impression that we're "Not safe for work."
Here's a typical, but fairly stupid reaction:
“[VDARE.com Contributor]: did you look at the site?
“Answer: I called it up at work and up popped this white head, sort of like a Nazi site. I got off right away because I didn't want to get into trouble at work.”
That "white head" is picture of a doe (a deer—a female deer.)
There is also the problem that Southern Poverty Law Center insists we're a hate group. The SPLC is best thought of as a fundraising organization; the more "hate" they find, the more money they can raise.
The same goes for George Soros's Media Matters—they make their living finding politically incorrect thought, and they are as likely to find it as a tort lawyer is to find negligence.
As a result, several internet filtering companies have classed us as a "hate site."
Hate means practically anything disapproved of in the 21st century, but perfectly normal in even the second half of the twentieth. For example, Bob Jones University was accused of hate for extreme Protestantism—but Protestantism is sort of supposed to be anti-Catholic. Pope Benedict, on the other hand, was considered hateful for saying that Buddhism was wrong. Again, the Pope is supposed to be in the business of preaching what the Church teaches to be the truth.
And as far as accusations of racism are concerned, I once pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi and Frosty the Snowman have been accused of being racist, along with a surprising number of others.
Internet filtering of "hate" in the workplace is usually part of the corporate desire to avoid any controversy, because of possible bad publicity, and because of a desire to avoid being sued for "Hostile Work Environment" harassment.
H. L. Mencken once defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The crusade against "hate" is a similar strain of Puritanism.
Or reverse Puritanism—a site called Jesus-is-Lord.com, whose owners actually are Puritans (in the same sense that Oliver Cromwell was) was banned by Google, apparently for their anti-abortion stance.
There's nothing that can't be called hate—by someone who hates it. But even if we were guilty of "hate," of course, that wouldn't affect the freedom of speech issue—"hate speech" is as much a Constitutional right as any other speech, as First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh points out. ["Hate Speech", Eugene Volokh, Volokh.com, June 7, 2008]
So as result of corporate and government filtering there are a lot of places in America, that block us. The same as they do in the Arab world.
When we find that a particular company is blocking us, we have a lawyer write them a letter. That usually causes them to back down.
Here's a letter we got from a company that is no longer blocking us. (Name withheld because they were nice about it, and besides, if I mention that they unblocked us, they'll get flak from the other side.)
“I am writing, as …General Counsel, to confirm the decision of my client, [withheld] with regard to its designation of VDARE.com, published by your client VDare Foundation. Initially, please let me remind you that [our client] does not “block” any URL. [Our client] categorizes the various URL’s it reviews, and [our client]’s customers make their independent decision how to treat them on the customer’s own internet access.
“After review of further research and your explanatory letter, [our client] will, as I stated in our conversation, categorize VDARE.com as ‘social opinion’. You may be sure that [our client's] actions were inadvertent and not the result of negligence or malice. With this letter and my client’s recategorization of VDARE.com as “social opinion”, we consider the matter closed.”
Which it is…but there are a lot of censorware companies out there. Here are some of the players in the censorware game:
www.8e6.com , a California company, so called because they "86" bad stuff on the web. They used to classify us as something bad, but they don’t' anymore. You can contact them here, and if you feel we or another site has been mischaracterized, you can "submit a site" here.
Provisio GMBH of Germany. They had a program called SiteKiosk that hotels in the US use. (And K-Mart, for some reason.) I did a blog about them here, when we found that they'd announced that their goal was to filter "pornographic content and content glorifying violence, as well as right-wing and other so-called forbidden content ( but not, of course, left wing content). Let's just say that Germany has never had a history of supporting free speech.
Websense—a large multinational, with offices all over, including the Republic of Ireland. Their site lookup tool is here, and you can phone them at 1 800.723.1166, or email them here. We had to write them a letter at one point, and also submit a change request to their website. Anti=censorware activist Bennett Haselton found in when he checked in 2006 that they classified us as something innocuous—and immediately tried to change that, see my blog And This Is How We Repay Them.
Secure Computing/Smartfilter—an American company with headquarters in San Jose and Reston, Virginia, where they deal with the Federal Government. Their URL checker is here, (they're classifying us as Extreme at the moment, which I think is a step down from hate speech, but still…) and you can contact them here. [Phone 1-800-379-4944, email ] They say "If you believe that the category should be changed you can either fill out the category suggestion form from our website (http://www.securecomputing.com/index.cfm?sKey=234) or you can submit your request by sending an email to sites@securecomputing.com."
So it's important for you to contact us with details if you see that we're blocked at your place of work, library or whatever, so we can fight back.
You can usually tell who's doing the filtering because the name of the filter will pop up on your screen. If it doesn't, please send us the exact text of the message, since each message is unique to a particular company. "Access to this web page is restricted at this time", for example, is what you get when you're blocked by Websense.
One of the strangest and most worrisome things about the prevalence of filtering is that it even affects the computers of journalists, who are supposed to be getting the facts, some of which are only available on filtered sites. It's possible that some facts, even if not exclusive to VDARE.com, will themselves be automatically filtered. (Examples—relative crime rates among races, Martin Luther King's private life, political associations, and plagiarism, the standard scientific position on differences in IQ.)
One radio host interviewed Steve Sailer on the radio, discussing Sailer's book America's Half Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance", which can be downloaded for free—an easy way for journalists to find out what's in it—or bought in hard copy for a mere $29.95. But the host reported that he couldn't access it from his station's computer!
What will it do to journalism when a MainStream Media writer isn't allowed to know what everyone with an unfiltered internet connection can find out?
Of course, the writer could finish his work at home—but future censorship laws may make content considered hateful unavailable in your own computer in your own home, as is the case in China. The OpenNet Initiative publishes a map of countries like Iran that filter all internet access . America isn't on that map—yet. But there are filtered computers all across the country.
I was discussing this with an IT Professional who supported, for example, the Army's right to censor internet access for the purpose of maintaining good order and discipline:
IT Professional: The military is very much justified in restricting any access in time of war. Some things that you can look at on line will get you killed in other countries our soldiers may be serving in.
Me: You mean you'll be offending Muslims looking over your shoulder?
IT Professional: Something like that.
My feeling is that if Muslims in a war zone are looking over your shoulder, you've got worse problems than internet censorship can solve.
But the rest of us are not in a war zone—we're trying to use the internet for research, and blocking any part of it diminishes its usefulness. Furthermore, the campaign against "hate" on the internet is similar Janet Murguia's attempt to get Lou Dobbs, and all patriotic immigration reformers, off the air waves, or David Brock's attempt to silence Sam Francis—an attempt to drive people like both VDARE.COM's writers and our readers out of public life.
What can be done about this situation?
As an individual victim of filtering, there are a number of things you can do to bypass filters. You can read on your personally owned Blackberry, et cetera, or run portable programs from a thumb drive. (If the words "running portable programs from a thumb drive" mean absolutely nothing to you, then you may not be computer literate enough to use this kind of advice. ) If you are computer literate, then see Lifehacker's post Geek to Live: Survive IT lockdown for some ideas. (Some of these are covered in my earlier article.)
If you're in a position of responsibility, owning your own business, head of an IT department, or otherwise in charge of computer policies, you can refuse to use the filters, or at least refuse to let them block political sites.
As a citizen, you can engage in anti-filter activism, doing what you can to prevent these things being required by law.
And finally, of course, because we're on the front line of the filter wars, because we're both fighting against the censors, and being censored by them, you can fight censorware by supporting VDARE.COM.
Internet Filters—Private Sector First Amendment Workaround, or Gov't Censorship In Disguise?
[See also The Fulford File: VDARE.COM Censored by Corporate Software]
If you're reading this, you're lucky enough to live in a free country, but also lucky enough to have a free computer. A lot of people are not that lucky.
Internet filtering has become a problem for us, because our heterodox opinions, frequently on subjects where any opinion at all can get you in trouble, have led us to be classed by our enemies as "haters." (We are not “haters”, and do not advocate or commit anti-immigrant violence, which tends to be committed by the same people who commit violence against non-immigrants.)
However, some people seem to have gotten the impression that we're "Not safe for work."
Here's a typical, but fairly stupid reaction:
“[VDARE.com Contributor]: did you look at the site?
“Answer: I called it up at work and up popped this white head, sort of like a Nazi site. I got off right away because I didn't want to get into trouble at work.”
That "white head" is picture of a doe (a deer—a female deer.)
There is also the problem that Southern Poverty Law Center insists we're a hate group. The SPLC is best thought of as a fundraising organization; the more "hate" they find, the more money they can raise.
The same goes for George Soros's Media Matters—they make their living finding politically incorrect thought, and they are as likely to find it as a tort lawyer is to find negligence.
As a result, several internet filtering companies have classed us as a "hate site."
Hate means practically anything disapproved of in the 21st century, but perfectly normal in even the second half of the twentieth. For example, Bob Jones University was accused of hate for extreme Protestantism—but Protestantism is sort of supposed to be anti-Catholic. Pope Benedict, on the other hand, was considered hateful for saying that Buddhism was wrong. Again, the Pope is supposed to be in the business of preaching what the Church teaches to be the truth.
And as far as accusations of racism are concerned, I once pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi and Frosty the Snowman have been accused of being racist, along with a surprising number of others.
Internet filtering of "hate" in the workplace is usually part of the corporate desire to avoid any controversy, because of possible bad publicity, and because of a desire to avoid being sued for "Hostile Work Environment" harassment.
H. L. Mencken once defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The crusade against "hate" is a similar strain of Puritanism.
Or reverse Puritanism—a site called Jesus-is-Lord.com, whose owners actually are Puritans (in the same sense that Oliver Cromwell was) was banned by Google, apparently for their anti-abortion stance.
There's nothing that can't be called hate—by someone who hates it. But even if we were guilty of "hate," of course, that wouldn't affect the freedom of speech issue—"hate speech" is as much a Constitutional right as any other speech, as First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh points out. ["Hate Speech", Eugene Volokh, Volokh.com, June 7, 2008]
So as result of corporate and government filtering there are a lot of places in America, that block us. The same as they do in the Arab world.
When we find that a particular company is blocking us, we have a lawyer write them a letter. That usually causes them to back down.
Here's a letter we got from a company that is no longer blocking us. (Name withheld because they were nice about it, and besides, if I mention that they unblocked us, they'll get flak from the other side.)
“I am writing, as …General Counsel, to confirm the decision of my client, [withheld] with regard to its designation of VDARE.com, published by your client VDare Foundation. Initially, please let me remind you that [our client] does not “block” any URL. [Our client] categorizes the various URL’s it reviews, and [our client]’s customers make their independent decision how to treat them on the customer’s own internet access.
“After review of further research and your explanatory letter, [our client] will, as I stated in our conversation, categorize VDARE.com as ‘social opinion’. You may be sure that [our client's] actions were inadvertent and not the result of negligence or malice. With this letter and my client’s recategorization of VDARE.com as “social opinion”, we consider the matter closed.”
Which it is…but there are a lot of censorware companies out there. Here are some of the players in the censorware game:
www.8e6.com , a California company, so called because they "86" bad stuff on the web. They used to classify us as something bad, but they don’t' anymore. You can contact them here, and if you feel we or another site has been mischaracterized, you can "submit a site" here.
Provisio GMBH of Germany. They had a program called SiteKiosk that hotels in the US use. (And K-Mart, for some reason.) I did a blog about them here, when we found that they'd announced that their goal was to filter "pornographic content and content glorifying violence, as well as right-wing and other so-called forbidden content ( but not, of course, left wing content). Let's just say that Germany has never had a history of supporting free speech.
Websense—a large multinational, with offices all over, including the Republic of Ireland. Their site lookup tool is here, and you can phone them at 1 800.723.1166, or email them here. We had to write them a letter at one point, and also submit a change request to their website. Anti=censorware activist Bennett Haselton found in when he checked in 2006 that they classified us as something innocuous—and immediately tried to change that, see my blog And This Is How We Repay Them.
Secure Computing/Smartfilter—an American company with headquarters in San Jose and Reston, Virginia, where they deal with the Federal Government. Their URL checker is here, (they're classifying us as Extreme at the moment, which I think is a step down from hate speech, but still…) and you can contact them here. [Phone 1-800-379-4944, email ] They say "If you believe that the category should be changed you can either fill out the category suggestion form from our website (http://www.securecomputing.com/index.cfm?sKey=234) or you can submit your request by sending an email to sites@securecomputing.com."
So it's important for you to contact us with details if you see that we're blocked at your place of work, library or whatever, so we can fight back.
You can usually tell who's doing the filtering because the name of the filter will pop up on your screen. If it doesn't, please send us the exact text of the message, since each message is unique to a particular company. "Access to this web page is restricted at this time", for example, is what you get when you're blocked by Websense.
One of the strangest and most worrisome things about the prevalence of filtering is that it even affects the computers of journalists, who are supposed to be getting the facts, some of which are only available on filtered sites. It's possible that some facts, even if not exclusive to VDARE.com, will themselves be automatically filtered. (Examples—relative crime rates among races, Martin Luther King's private life, political associations, and plagiarism, the standard scientific position on differences in IQ.)
One radio host interviewed Steve Sailer on the radio, discussing Sailer's book America's Half Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance", which can be downloaded for free—an easy way for journalists to find out what's in it—or bought in hard copy for a mere $29.95. But the host reported that he couldn't access it from his station's computer!
What will it do to journalism when a MainStream Media writer isn't allowed to know what everyone with an unfiltered internet connection can find out?
Of course, the writer could finish his work at home—but future censorship laws may make content considered hateful unavailable in your own computer in your own home, as is the case in China. The OpenNet Initiative publishes a map of countries like Iran that filter all internet access . America isn't on that map—yet. But there are filtered computers all across the country.
I was discussing this with an IT Professional who supported, for example, the Army's right to censor internet access for the purpose of maintaining good order and discipline:
IT Professional: The military is very much justified in restricting any access in time of war. Some things that you can look at on line will get you killed in other countries our soldiers may be serving in.
Me: You mean you'll be offending Muslims looking over your shoulder?
IT Professional: Something like that.
My feeling is that if Muslims in a war zone are looking over your shoulder, you've got worse problems than internet censorship can solve.
But the rest of us are not in a war zone—we're trying to use the internet for research, and blocking any part of it diminishes its usefulness. Furthermore, the campaign against "hate" on the internet is similar Janet Murguia's attempt to get Lou Dobbs, and all patriotic immigration reformers, off the air waves, or David Brock's attempt to silence Sam Francis—an attempt to drive people like both VDARE.COM's writers and our readers out of public life.
What can be done about this situation?
As an individual victim of filtering, there are a number of things you can do to bypass filters. You can read on your personally owned Blackberry, et cetera, or run portable programs from a thumb drive. (If the words "running portable programs from a thumb drive" mean absolutely nothing to you, then you may not be computer literate enough to use this kind of advice. ) If you are computer literate, then see Lifehacker's post Geek to Live: Survive IT lockdown for some ideas. (Some of these are covered in my earlier article.)
If you're in a position of responsibility, owning your own business, head of an IT department, or otherwise in charge of computer policies, you can refuse to use the filters, or at least refuse to let them block political sites.
As a citizen, you can engage in anti-filter activism, doing what you can to prevent these things being required by law.
And finally, of course, because we're on the front line of the filter wars, because we're both fighting against the censors, and being censored by them, you can fight censorware by supporting VDARE.COM.
Census Action Alert!!
A timely article from www.fairus.org this year's census. This follows this previous post about how to report illegal aliens who might try and SKEW the census numbers and this analysis of the overall census boondoggle.Remember, if you know any Census workers, make sure that they are reporting illegal aliens.For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog
Census Action Alert
Open Borders Lobby Battling Effort to Obtain Accurate Count of Illegal Alien Population:Call Your Senators Now and Ask them to Support the Vitter/Bennett Census Amendment!
The Senate is currently considering the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 spending bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice, and certain federal science programs. As FAIR has reported, much of the debate concerning this so-called “CJS” spending bill has centered on an amendment offered by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT). This amendment would require the Census Bureau — which is part of the Department of Commerce — to include questions about citizenship and immigration status on the forms to be used in the upcoming 2010 Census.
The Census is used to apportion seats in Congress among the states, which, in turn, influences the composition of the Electoral College that elects the President. The Vitter/Bennett amendment would lay the groundwork for reforming how Congressional seats are apportioned by disregarding illegal aliens and other non-citizens so that they are no longer able to affect the outcome of U.S. elections.The current apportionment system also rewards states that have encouraged illegal immigration — whether by granting taxpayer-funded welfare benefits, adopting laws that give illegal aliens a driver’s license or allowing their cities to adopt sanctuary policies — while states that have not adopted these policies are punished. In addition, the inclusion of illegal aliens in the apportionment of Congressional seats creates disparity between voters in districts with high and low illegal alien populations. Representation of citizens in districts with relatively few illegal aliens is diluted. Finally, certain federal programs rely on census data to determine how federal funds are dispersed, even though illegal aliens and new immigrants are not eligible for some of these programs. This means that states with large illegal alien populations receive more than their fair share of federal funding at the expense of other states.As we have come to expect, the open borders lobby and some of their allies in Congress are attempting to block the Vitter amendment. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used a parliamentary maneuver in a failed attempt to block a vote on the Vitter/Bennett Census amendment. Now, following Reid’s defeat, a group of amnesty supporting special interest groups is planning on holding a press conference on Capitol Hill in opposition to the Vitter amendment.
They will argue that it is too late to change next year’s Census and that not asking about citizenship and/or immigration status would corrupt the Census process. But, the fact is that the current system has corrupted equal representation of U.S. citizens in our Congress, and a change in that system is overdue.Why is the open borders lobby so afraid of seeing this issue come to a vote? Why are they attempting to sweep this issue under the rug? The answer is clear. They don’t want the American people to know the extent that the illegal immigration problem affects our country. It would be one more thing that stands in the way of their push for a massive amnesty bill through Congress!We can stop the amnesty lobby from preventing a vote on this amendment, but we need your help!
Here’s what you can do to ensure that the federal government finally obtains an accurate count of the illegal alien population:
Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 (or, click here to find your Senators). Urge your Senators to:Support the Vitter/Bennett Census amendment to the FY2010 CJS spending bill.Oppose any effort to shut off debate over this amendment, and oppose any effort to invoke cloture on the CJS bill, until the Vitter amendment gets the up-or-down vote it deserves!
Census Action Alert
Open Borders Lobby Battling Effort to Obtain Accurate Count of Illegal Alien Population:Call Your Senators Now and Ask them to Support the Vitter/Bennett Census Amendment!
The Senate is currently considering the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 spending bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice, and certain federal science programs. As FAIR has reported, much of the debate concerning this so-called “CJS” spending bill has centered on an amendment offered by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT). This amendment would require the Census Bureau — which is part of the Department of Commerce — to include questions about citizenship and immigration status on the forms to be used in the upcoming 2010 Census.
The Census is used to apportion seats in Congress among the states, which, in turn, influences the composition of the Electoral College that elects the President. The Vitter/Bennett amendment would lay the groundwork for reforming how Congressional seats are apportioned by disregarding illegal aliens and other non-citizens so that they are no longer able to affect the outcome of U.S. elections.The current apportionment system also rewards states that have encouraged illegal immigration — whether by granting taxpayer-funded welfare benefits, adopting laws that give illegal aliens a driver’s license or allowing their cities to adopt sanctuary policies — while states that have not adopted these policies are punished. In addition, the inclusion of illegal aliens in the apportionment of Congressional seats creates disparity between voters in districts with high and low illegal alien populations. Representation of citizens in districts with relatively few illegal aliens is diluted. Finally, certain federal programs rely on census data to determine how federal funds are dispersed, even though illegal aliens and new immigrants are not eligible for some of these programs. This means that states with large illegal alien populations receive more than their fair share of federal funding at the expense of other states.As we have come to expect, the open borders lobby and some of their allies in Congress are attempting to block the Vitter amendment. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used a parliamentary maneuver in a failed attempt to block a vote on the Vitter/Bennett Census amendment. Now, following Reid’s defeat, a group of amnesty supporting special interest groups is planning on holding a press conference on Capitol Hill in opposition to the Vitter amendment.
They will argue that it is too late to change next year’s Census and that not asking about citizenship and/or immigration status would corrupt the Census process. But, the fact is that the current system has corrupted equal representation of U.S. citizens in our Congress, and a change in that system is overdue.Why is the open borders lobby so afraid of seeing this issue come to a vote? Why are they attempting to sweep this issue under the rug? The answer is clear. They don’t want the American people to know the extent that the illegal immigration problem affects our country. It would be one more thing that stands in the way of their push for a massive amnesty bill through Congress!We can stop the amnesty lobby from preventing a vote on this amendment, but we need your help!
Here’s what you can do to ensure that the federal government finally obtains an accurate count of the illegal alien population:
Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 (or, click here to find your Senators). Urge your Senators to:Support the Vitter/Bennett Census amendment to the FY2010 CJS spending bill.Oppose any effort to shut off debate over this amendment, and oppose any effort to invoke cloture on the CJS bill, until the Vitter amendment gets the up-or-down vote it deserves!
Friday, February 5, 2010
The Super-Sized Census Boondoggle: Shaping The Electoral Landscape.
A timely article fromMichelle Malkin of http://www.vdare.us/ about the boondogle of this year's census. This follows this previous post about how to report illegal aliens who might try and SKEW the census numbers and this attempt to deal with the census fairly.Remember, if you know any Census workers, make sure that they are reporting illegal aliens.For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog
The Super-Sized Census Boondoggle: Shaping The Electoral Landscape.
By Michelle Malkin
If only the federal government were as responsible with our money as Pepsi is with theirs. The soda giant has been in the Super Bowl ad business for more than two decades. But this year, Pepsi determined it was economically unwise to pay $3 million for a 30-second spot. So, who's foolish enough to pay for Super Bowl gold-plated airtime? You and me and Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Census Bureau will squander $2.5 million on a half-minute Super Bowl ad starring D-list celebrity Ed Begley Jr., plus two pre-game blurbs and 12-second "vignettes" featuring Super Bowl anchor James Brown. It's a drop in the census boondoggle bucket (otherwise known as the tax-subsidized National Democratic Future Voter Outreach Drive).
The Obama White House has allocated a total of $340 million toward an "unprecedented" promotional blitz for the 2010 census. That's on top of $1 billion in stimulus money siphoned off for increased census "public outreach" and staffing. In all, the census will triple its total 2000 budget to $15 billion.
Ads pimping the census have already appeared during the Golden Globe awards and will broadcast during the Daytona 500 and NCAA Final Four championships. Some $80 million will be poured into multilingual ads in 28 languages from Arabic to Yiddish. Racial and ethnic groups have been squabbling over their share of the pie.
The U.S. census is a decennial census mandated by our Constitution. Should Americans know about it? Sure. Should the P.R. budget become a bottomless slush fund in recessionary times? Surely not.
Yet, no matter how you translate it, the census commercials to date have been an "Ishtar"-style flop. Global ad agency Draftfcb, based in (Obama's hometown) Chicago and New York, nabbed a $200 million four-year contract to oversee the Census Bureau's direct marketing, online and offline general market media strategies. The agency hired comedian Christopher Guest to direct "viral" spots. One of the supposedly "humor-driven" videos directed by Guest and commissioned by Draftfcb was uploaded to YouTube a few weeks ago. It has racked up a measly 6,880 views.
"For a once-a-decade project involving every living American, that's a pretty crummy return on investment," jeered AdFreak's David Griner. "The video seems to be hampered by the same problem that plagues all campaigns meant to 'go viral'—i.e., it's simply not that funny. … The joke is a chuckler at best, and dragged out to three minutes, that chuckle gets spread pretty thin." According to independent census watchdog Stephen Morse, the feds conducted a total of 115 focus groups in 37 markets across the country before settling on the dud of an ad.
That's a lot of focus-grouping to get people to pay a little extra attention to government headcount questionnaires that will be coming straight to their mailboxes.
Taxpayers are also footing the bill for the Mother of all Government Junkets—a three-month road trip by lucky-ducky Census Bureau flacks traveling in 13 buses and cargo vans with trailers. They'll be partying in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and at parades across the country. In case you were wondering about the anticipated Census Road Show carbon footprint, it's an estimated 223 metric tons.
But not to worry: The eco-teers of an Al Gore-endorsed carbon offset firm called "Carbonfund.org" have become official government "partners" with the Census to offset all the vehicle emissions—and surf off the free publicity to garner more business.
As if overpriced TV ads, online videos no one watches and indulgent, cross-country caravans weren't enough, the Census Bureau is also enlisting 56 million schoolchildren to pester their parents and act as junior government enumerators. Educrats are spending several billions more on math and social studies lessons peddling the census. Overzealous census partners such as the National Association of Latino Elected Officials have distributed recruitment propaganda urging constituents to participate because "Joseph and Mary participated in the census." Goodness knows what kind of fear-mongering curricula the kids are being served in the name of counting heads—and shaping the electoral landscape.
"When times are tough, you tighten your belts," President Obama lectured us. "You don't blow a bunch of cash in Vegas." Coincidentally, the Census Road Tour junketeers just wrapped up a visit in Vegas. Next stop? You guessed it: the Super Bowl in Miami. Taxpayers should start crying foul.
Michelle Malkin [email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild and the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.
The Super-Sized Census Boondoggle: Shaping The Electoral Landscape.
By Michelle Malkin
If only the federal government were as responsible with our money as Pepsi is with theirs. The soda giant has been in the Super Bowl ad business for more than two decades. But this year, Pepsi determined it was economically unwise to pay $3 million for a 30-second spot. So, who's foolish enough to pay for Super Bowl gold-plated airtime? You and me and Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Census Bureau will squander $2.5 million on a half-minute Super Bowl ad starring D-list celebrity Ed Begley Jr., plus two pre-game blurbs and 12-second "vignettes" featuring Super Bowl anchor James Brown. It's a drop in the census boondoggle bucket (otherwise known as the tax-subsidized National Democratic Future Voter Outreach Drive).
The Obama White House has allocated a total of $340 million toward an "unprecedented" promotional blitz for the 2010 census. That's on top of $1 billion in stimulus money siphoned off for increased census "public outreach" and staffing. In all, the census will triple its total 2000 budget to $15 billion.
Ads pimping the census have already appeared during the Golden Globe awards and will broadcast during the Daytona 500 and NCAA Final Four championships. Some $80 million will be poured into multilingual ads in 28 languages from Arabic to Yiddish. Racial and ethnic groups have been squabbling over their share of the pie.
The U.S. census is a decennial census mandated by our Constitution. Should Americans know about it? Sure. Should the P.R. budget become a bottomless slush fund in recessionary times? Surely not.
Yet, no matter how you translate it, the census commercials to date have been an "Ishtar"-style flop. Global ad agency Draftfcb, based in (Obama's hometown) Chicago and New York, nabbed a $200 million four-year contract to oversee the Census Bureau's direct marketing, online and offline general market media strategies. The agency hired comedian Christopher Guest to direct "viral" spots. One of the supposedly "humor-driven" videos directed by Guest and commissioned by Draftfcb was uploaded to YouTube a few weeks ago. It has racked up a measly 6,880 views.
"For a once-a-decade project involving every living American, that's a pretty crummy return on investment," jeered AdFreak's David Griner. "The video seems to be hampered by the same problem that plagues all campaigns meant to 'go viral'—i.e., it's simply not that funny. … The joke is a chuckler at best, and dragged out to three minutes, that chuckle gets spread pretty thin." According to independent census watchdog Stephen Morse, the feds conducted a total of 115 focus groups in 37 markets across the country before settling on the dud of an ad.
That's a lot of focus-grouping to get people to pay a little extra attention to government headcount questionnaires that will be coming straight to their mailboxes.
Taxpayers are also footing the bill for the Mother of all Government Junkets—a three-month road trip by lucky-ducky Census Bureau flacks traveling in 13 buses and cargo vans with trailers. They'll be partying in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and at parades across the country. In case you were wondering about the anticipated Census Road Show carbon footprint, it's an estimated 223 metric tons.
But not to worry: The eco-teers of an Al Gore-endorsed carbon offset firm called "Carbonfund.org" have become official government "partners" with the Census to offset all the vehicle emissions—and surf off the free publicity to garner more business.
As if overpriced TV ads, online videos no one watches and indulgent, cross-country caravans weren't enough, the Census Bureau is also enlisting 56 million schoolchildren to pester their parents and act as junior government enumerators. Educrats are spending several billions more on math and social studies lessons peddling the census. Overzealous census partners such as the National Association of Latino Elected Officials have distributed recruitment propaganda urging constituents to participate because "Joseph and Mary participated in the census." Goodness knows what kind of fear-mongering curricula the kids are being served in the name of counting heads—and shaping the electoral landscape.
"When times are tough, you tighten your belts," President Obama lectured us. "You don't blow a bunch of cash in Vegas." Coincidentally, the Census Road Tour junketeers just wrapped up a visit in Vegas. Next stop? You guessed it: the Super Bowl in Miami. Taxpayers should start crying foul.
Michelle Malkin [email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild and the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
