The War on The Internet

So today we were greeted by news which was to be expected really, and to be quite honest I don't even know why I'm bothering to write about it seeing as every blog in the UK is probably already covering this story but for the sake of adding to critical mass, I'll state the issues.

Today the news was reporting on the '1984' style press control:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295658/Press-regulation-Internet-targeted-MPs-time-chilling-threat-free-speech.html

Apparently the British Government has seen fit to bring in a bunch of new laws which not only strongly restrict the media's ability to report on stories (not that the mass media was ever that great at bringing things to peoples attention in the first place) but also means that there is a serious threat of ordinary internet users being sued for damages for cases of slander and or defamation. Those at risk includes me, for writing this blog and it includes you if you decided to post up unsubstantiated bullshit on Facebook or Twitter - quite literally you can be held accountable for saying anything, really, if someone can falsify evidence to the contrary to what you have said. 
 
That said, this is nothing new. Hundreds of people have already been arrested (and charged) for things said on Facebook, and I'm guessing the toll for people losing their jobs for 'I hate my boss, I think he is a cunt' comments, probably extends to the hundreds of thousands mark. Lets face it, the internet isn't safe anymore, in particular Facebook which was always an intelligence finding database from the get-up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/18030970

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19882618

You have to ask, is this really an attack on the 'free-press'? Or is it really an attack on the internet's ability to quickly get information across?

Lets be honest, if it wasn't for the internet most of us would still be believing there was actually a point to the wars in the Middle East, that the economy really was failing due to genuine mistakes and that politicians actually have our best interests at heart. The internet has been a brilliant tool for unlocking minds and dispelling the bollocks stories we've been told over the centuries, until now. This could be seriously damaging for everyone who actually cares about learning the truth about things.

Lets take a scenario for arguments sake:

A woman is kidnapped and gang raped repeatedly by a group of highly wealthy politicians and bankers. She gets out, and no one believes her, the police are too scared to chase up the case and so in desperation she posts her ordeal up on the internet, because currently if you have a huge problem which no one seems to be helping you with, you post it on the internet to try and get publicity. If these people were so rich that they could pay off the police and pay for some witnesses to vouch for them being some place else at the time this rape allegedly happened, they could then take that woman to the cleaners and infinancially rape her too, just to really rub the salt in the wounds.

Whilst this may seem a bit of an extreme example, there are tons of cases which have received publicity through the internet, people who have won against corruption and blackmail, this Act would potentially put a stop to that.

Thing is, its not just freedom of speech which is under attack.

The past few years has seen both the European Union and America try and bring in internet laws such as 'SOPA' which far extend past their premise that it is just for preventing online piracy. In any case, despite both SOPA in the states and the European equivalent, the legislation was rejected on privacy grounds. Despite that, starting from next year in 2014, in the UK internet service providers will be required to log and monitor your download habits and give you a 'three strikes' warning, where presumably your internet speeds will be slowed until eventually you receive nasty letters through the post asking you to come to court.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406323,00.asp

The same is happening in America too, albeit they get six strikes instead of our three.

http://phys.org/news/2013-01-braces-online-piracy.html

Europe and America both have the sinister issue of having to pay £20 (or $30) to appeal against an ISP's decision, because, you know, its not like the UK or America has a Bill of Rights or anything. And it gets worse. You ever posted something like a video of your mate falling over, onto YouTube? You put some music onto that clip? Guess what, if you did, you could be fined under these new proposals.

In any case just be glad you don't live in Germany where the lines between civil and criminal cases are blurred. If you are caught downloading porn illegally over there the porn studio send letters to your home demanding a payment settlement and then post your name publicly for everyone to laugh at (unless they pay £650 straight to the firm straight away without question.) Apparently the potential damage to relationships is neither here nor there to these arseholes.

Trouble is, its set to get worse. Gone are the days where the internet danced to the tune of dial-up tones and the anarchistic web pages ran wild, slowly but surely the internet is becoming standardised and my prediction is that eventually all the websites we take for granted today will be shut down and we will all be given some form of internet passport. The internet will be like a glorified Ceefax, except it draws more information out about you, than you do about it.

For example, there was huge controversy about Google's terms and conditions changing last year. People generally don't care that much anymore now its old news, but in my opinion people should be very scared of an internet organisation which demands you use a 'real name' when filling out your profile. Its not my belief that Google is necessarily some Government sponsored spy (that's Facebook) but I do think that they are deliberately and undeniably creating a file on you to know how best to sell products to you.

Facebook on the other hand is without question being used by police forces to gather intelligence on us, and as technology increases that ability will only grow. They are working on software which can predict where in the world flashpoints and crimes are about to take place and software which evaluates all your likes and dislikes in your Facebook timeline and makes a judgement on you about how likely you are to commit a crime.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract

All we need now is some sort of drug which makes us all docile and apathetic.

Oh hold on!

Welcome to the New World Order!

Global Warming Made The Dinosaurs!

This is an old story from way back in 2010 but I found the link through a new story on the BBC news site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8580444.stm

In this article scientists reported that there may be a link between apparent sudden global temperature rises caused by volcanic activity and the dinosaurs rise to become the most successful group of land animals the Earth has ever seen. Apparently this was caused by 'global warming', which killed off the large primitive reptiles which dominated before hand allowing the dinosaurs a window of opportunity.

So the BBC, usually the flag carrier of state propaganda posts information which flies in the face of global warming fears. Surely if cosmological or geological influences can adjust temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the age of the dinosaurs, it can still happen today? Right?

Temperature variations happen, continue to happen, and until this planet is either vaporized or turned into a ball of ice and thrown off into outer-space, will always happen.

There is this strange idea that has somehow got into the minds of everyone in society, including scientists on the payroll of Government agencies, that the planet must stay the same. Historical evidence flies in the face of such ridiculous assertions.

Look back at periods of British weather. The Neolithic period was warm and wet, one of the main reasons that farming techniques were able to be brought into Northern Europe.
Then there was the 'Warm Medieval Period'. This period was warm enough in England to grow vineyards for the Roman occupation. In fact it was this warm period which enabled large viking settlements on Greenland and the finding of Vinland (or Canada as we now call it) by so called uncivilized Danish brutes. Of course this doesn't mean that the weather stayed nice enough for them to stay there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101123-native-american-indian-vikings-iceland-genetic-dna-science-europe/

http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

Vikings travelled to America and Greenland in Longboats.

Ironically today we have the worlds media doing the rounds about 'extreme cold weather fronts' whatever that means. Of course the idea is to try and trick those of us with short memories into believing we are all going to die relatively soon of some kind of climatic disaster. In some roundabout way, 'climate change' can either be attributed to any kind of weather, be it hot or cold. This latest cold snap in the UK however is nothing compared to the arctic winter felt almost two hundred years ago in 1814 when the Thames froze over and there were entire carnivals pretty much held on the ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs


Of course there may be a negative side to all this. I mean, if global warming really did create dinosaurs (like global warming to reptiles is like that radioactive spider to Peter Parker) we could theoretically be creating Godzilla right now.

Falling Guy

Sometimes you get those news stories which seem so random that they just can't possibly be true.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20644402 

 An Angolan guy who it seems was trying to enter the UK as an illegal immigrant fell to his death from a passenger plane near London's main airport at Heathrow. No sympathy here. 

 Strangely, its not the first time this has happened, and it seems its a bit of a well-known gutsy trick which involves holding onto the undercarriage at take-off and remaining there in the freezing, unpressurized conditions until touch down.

 http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/10/mans-body-found-in-undercarriage-of-nigerian-plane/ 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/09/romanian-stowaway-vienna-heathrow 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19562101

 Rather them than me... The only people I feel sorry for are the poor bastards who woke up like every other day, went out their doors and found a body splattered on the ground. I just hope no kids saw it. Sheer randomness.

More Derps In Space!

Y U NO STOP SENDING RANDOM SHIT INTO SPACE!?

So once again our best scientists are working on the most complex scientific problems humanity faces. This challenge trumps the story I already covered of: What does whiskey brewed in space taste like? (http://eibsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/space-whiskey.html)

In any case, this is the most difficult experiment to reconstruct and therefore required to actually send a phone into space to test the hypothesis. The question? Can someone hear you scream in space?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20073779

You seriously cannot make this shit up. They are sending a mobile phone into space, strapped to a satellite, in order to test whether sounds which are played on it can be picked up in space in a vacuum.

Erm? Why? Surely students intelligent enough to gain entry into Cambridge university will realise that you don't need to send anything into space to actually do this experiment. Have these kids never heard of those rooms which can create a vacuum? Seriously, Im going to have a hard job trusting anything these future scientists come up with in the future.

That been said, sometimes it is cool to see something utterly random sent into the edge of space! But please don't make out there is a scientific reason to do so!

Goverment Agencies: Y U NO Feed The Troll!!

 

My previous blog which I gave up on featured some pretty funny letters and emails in response to random questions I asked, however it seems now that these departments are fully aware of the internet trollites out there such as myself.

Unfortunately, it is this reason that no new material has been posted on here for over a week as I had been awaiting responses from them. Nevermind. Perhaps they are just taking their time to post long-winded and ultimately boring responses.

Worst Political Protest Ever

Generally speaking, most forms of protest are strictly symbolic. It is rare for protests to gain any leverage because they usually only last a short time due to peoples lives dictating a need to return to normality.

I was just flicking through the news and came across this news story from Togo, (I wasn't aware the nation even existed) a small nation near the Ivory Coast region of Africa.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48799090/ns/world_news-africa/

In Togo however, women have been called to protest by a civil rights group in order to pressure their husbands into taking action against the new election rules which prevent fair democratic process.

Fair enough.

But how do these women hope to gain a political message through their husbands? The answer is pretty primal: A sex strike.

Now, at first this doesn't seem like a bad idea. No man wants to be in the middle of a dry-spell after all, but then that's when the news story fails to remain relevant and begins to become hilarious.

For a start, the 'sex-strike' is only a week long. The vast majority of men in long-term relationships I know, myself included, know that a week is hardly the longest time to wait. In fact, Id be overjoyed with the prospect of sex once a week. This point alone did make me laugh, but the lols continue.

When asked about this protest one of the women says:

"It's a good thing for us women to observe this sex strike as long as our children are in jail now. I believe that by observing this, we will get them released," Abla Tamekloe said. "For me, it's like fasting, and unless you fast, you will not get what you want from God."

A noble cause indeed. Except she then goes on to state:

When asked if her husband would agree, Tamekloe said: "It is easy for me to observe it. I am used to it, but I am not sure my husband will accept, but I have to explain to him.”

What the fuck? Why would you need to gain acceptance of your husband if you are protesting. Surely if he agreed with why you were doing it, you wouldn't need to have a sex-strike in the first place?

Ah, but there is more!

Reporting, the NBC article continues with this chestnut:

"One week sex strike is too much," said Fabre of the National Alliance for Change, who suggested a shorter period, amid laughter from the crowd at the demonstration. "Let's go for only two days".

I know I shouldn't find this story funny, but the irony displayed in this story is just too much to pass up. Most of these women clearly live in abusive relationships, and in a way highlights to today's society just how far women's rights have advanced in the West.

The last paragraph wraps the article up nicely.

"It is easy for her to say because she is not married herself. She does not live with a man at home," said Ekoue Blame, a Togolese journalist. "Does she think women who live with their husband will be able to observe that? By the way, who controls what couples do behind closed doors?"

Who controls what goes on behind closed doors? Well, clearly very abusive men by the sounds of it.