Eideard

The Canadian government has been accused of “muzzling” its scientists. Speakers at a major science meeting being held in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed…

Prof Thomas Pedersen, a senior scientist at the University of Victoria, said he believed there was a political motive in some cases.

“The Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won’t be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship,” he said. “I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don’t discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is…”

The allegation of “muzzling” came up at a session of the AAAS meeting to discuss the impact of a media protocol introduced by the Conservative government shortly after it was elected in 2008.

The protocol requires that all interview requests for scientists employed by the government must first be cleared by officials. A decision as to whether to allow the interview can take several days, which can prevent government scientists commenting on breaking news stories.

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To paraphrase our last president, Hollywood hates your freedom. There, I said it. Hollywood is the Al Qaeda of content. It clings to an antediluvian notion of how media should be created and distributed. The SOPA and PIPA acts — which Congress is continuing to consider, despite today’s mass protest against them — are its paternalistic, anti-Enlightenment attempt to suicide bomb the Internet’s ability to disrupt its pre-modern, rapidly deteriorating business model…

Maybe that sounds like crazy talk. But think about it: Hollywood would use SOPA to make it possible for anyone to single-handedly take down any site on the Internet, without the action of a court, just because anyone with access to that site (say, a commenter) used it to link to copyrighted content. What does Hollywood think? That if they win this level of power, the Internet will stop happening in the rest of the world?

That’s why today two of the smartest, most successful guys in America — Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, blacked out the logo on the most iconic homepage on the Internet. But don’t take their word for it — dozens of other sites have followed suit…including many of us on the wordpress.com network.

Hollywood still has an awful lot of our money, and the ignorance of our Congress…is vast. SOPA and PIPA, in other words, are the Internet’s version of the war on terror or the war on drugs. A new reality, a Forever War, which we’ll all be fighting for the rest of our lives — or at least until the end of the protection racket that modern copyright has become.

I spent much of my life as a performing artist, a creative artist. As a geek, I have been a contributing artist to blogs, large and small, for the last eight years. Cripes – I’ve been online since 1983. It’s natural and normal for me to come down on the side of those who are content creators. This fight is with content owners – rarely those who actually create a work of art or communications or thoughts or commentary.

If I must choose a side it is to oppose content owners who in practice couldn’t care less about content or the creative process. Their sole concern is how much they profit from that content.

If I must choose a side – it is to oppose censorship.

The Obama administration said over the weekend that it would not support legislation mandating changes to Internet infrastructure to fight online copyright and trademark infringement.

“Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security,” the administration said in a statement on Saturday. “Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk…”

The DNS-redirecting provisions in both bills were designed to prevent American citizens from visiting sites the attorney general maintains are dedicated to infringing activities…without having to prove a damned thing in a court of law!

The Obama administration’s announcement appears to have conceded to opposition from security experts who say the plan would sabotage U.S. government-approved efforts to secure DNS against hackers and break the Internet’s unified naming system by introducing lies into infrastructure. The government is agreeing with experts who maintain that the SOPA and PIPA and the Senate’s Protect IP Act would break the Internet’s universal character and hamper U.S. government-supported efforts to roll out DNSSEC, which is intended to prevent hackers from hijacking the net through fake DNS entries.

Victoria Espinel [L] with some other folks from work

The White House announcement was penned by Victoria Espinel…Aneesh Chopra…and Howard Schmidt…

The usual creeps – ranging from RIAA and MPAA to individual Congress-critters beholden to lobbyist bucks – made the usual excuses and ready themselves to fall back on revisions which still mean operating outside constitutional law.

Contents potentially offensive to some. If you’re easily offended by George Carlin – go away!

 
The Supreme Court is poised to take a fresh look at a key aspect of multimedia regulation — “indecent” material aired on the broadcast networks during the supposedly “family friendly” prime-time hours of 8 to 10 p.m. Oral arguments in this key free-speech dispute will be held Tuesday.

Why pretend this is a “fresh” look? The fundamentalist nutballs in charge of America’s right-wing demand changes to free speech time after time. When sufficient pimps for censorship are in place in Congress and the Supreme Court – this predictable dog and pony show arrives on the set.

At issue is whether the Federal Communications Commission may constitutionally enforce its policies on “fleeting expletives” and scenes of nudity on prime-time television programs, both live and scripted. The agency had imposed hefty fines on broadcasters for separate incidents. An expected ruling by summer could establish important First Amendment guidelines over expressive content on the airwaves.

A range of competing interests are at stake: Free speech versus censorship; regulation versus responsibility; art versus indecency.

No consideration of a public capable of making a choice, competent to run their own family lives. The origins of “political correctness” in conservative censorship still rule.

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are all parties in the case challenging the FCC regulations. A federal appeals court in 2010 for a second time struck down the government’s policies, concluding they were vague and inconsistently applied. Pending fines against the broadcasters were dismissed. The government then appealed to the high court…

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A US climate scientist at the centre of a row over Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s stance on climate change has spoken out for the first time, condemning the polarisation of the issue.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, had written a chapter for Gingrich’s upcoming book of essays on the environment. The chapter was aimed at climate sceptics, and those who fear it will cost too much to deal with climate change, but it was ditched by the presidential candidate after the book came under attack by rightwing talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Gingrich, desperate to shore up his conservative credentials, said of the chapter at a recent campaign event: “That’s not going to be in the book. We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it.”

In her first extensive comment on the matter, Hayhoe told the Guardian she condemned the polarisation of a crucial global concern. “I really, really deplore the politicisation and polarisation of this issue. There are these increasingly unprincipled attempts to polarise the science when the science is fact – like the sky is blue, the grass is green and the temperature of our planet is increasing.”

The decision to drop her contribution arrived as a complete shock to Hayhoe, who was told in a 7 December email that her chapter had been accepted without major changes. Days later, the chapter was on the scrap heap…

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Officials in Rick Perry’s home state of Texas have set off a scientists’ revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state’s environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. “None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre…

However, Perry, in his run for the Republican nomination, has elevated denial of science, from climate change to evolution, to an art form. He opposes any regulation of industry, and has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is the only state to refuse to sign on to the federal government’s new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. “I like to tell people we live in a state of denial in the state of Texas,” said John Anderson, an oceanography at Rice University, and author of the chapter targeted by the government censors…

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. “They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” said Anderson. “That’s not scientific review that’s just straight forward censorship.”

The barbarian cohort of politicians catering to every whim of the Oil Patch Boys is nothing new to anyone who lives within 600 miles of the Permian Basin. That they are marching towards full control of the Republican Party in concert with the flat-earthers of the Tea Party isn’t a surprise either.

The sad bit is that – like the groundswell that floated Mussolini into history like a turd floating on a garbage-filled tide – anger and despair over a Congress populated with do-nothings may fuel their replacement with know-nothings.

The foolishness of born-again libertarians is compounded not only by ignorance and a fear of educated folk – censorship once again comes into play as thoroughly as xenophobia and bigotry.

Founders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, circa 1975

It was described by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell as “obscene trash.”

High schools and public libraries banned it, while teenagers — male and female — hid it under their beds like a dirty magazine. Women across the country passed it to their friends, their sisters, their neighbors. They read chapters about rape in closets with flashlights. They gaped in dorm rooms at the photos of childbirth.

The landmark women’s health handbook was filled with sometimes graphic information about the most intimate aspects of women’s lives. It was revolutionary in its candid discussions — and depictions — of the specifics of sex, birth control, childbirth, lesbianism and other formerly taboo topics.

In 1971, the first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book sold 250,000 copies. Today, it is available in 25 languages and has sold more than 4 million copies. It’s hard to believe it all began in Boston with just 12 women.

They met during a women’s liberation conference in 1969. At the time, fewer than 10% of doctors were women, and topics like sexuality, pregnancy and abortion were rarely discussed. But a long conversation after a workshop on women and their bodies prompted this small group to launch the beginning of the women’s health care movement…

The next year, their work came to fruition: a 193-page booklet printed on newsprint titled “Women and Their Bodies” that sold for just 75 cents.

RTFA – the interview with Judy Norsigian , executive director of the ongoing, constantly updated publication. Think about giving a copy to young women you know – or read it yourself if you haven’t yet.

This is a book that still opens doors to thought and accomplishment for women stuck into the corners of a society that hasn’t yet progressed very well beyond superstition and ignorance.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

China’s Baidu is to partner with Microsoft for English-language search, giving the U.S. software giant a chance to expand its tiny Web presence in a market Google has stepped back from, and helping the Chinese company’s international ambitions.

The tie-up will direct English searches from Baidu to Microsoft’s Bing, which will deliver the results back to Baidu’s Web pages…

Baidu has about 80 percent of the search market in China — a nation with almost half a billion Internet users and still only about 30 percent penetration — after Google left mainland China in a high-profile fallout with Beijing over censorship.

Bing — which filters out results in China relating to controversial subjects, such as political dissidents, Taiwan or pornography, to be able to operate in the country — has a negligible share of the market, while Google has nearly 20 percent counting visits to its offshore sites…

The new tie-up, due to be launched later this year, builds on existing cooperation between Baidu and Bing on mobile platforms and page results.

Bing is one of the few software packages that Microsoft hasn’t managed to screw-up with complexity. The usual outcome for their products that just work well – and need little touching up over time – is that they get bored with it and drop it. Microsoft MONEY being the best example of that practice.

Though I don’t use it on a regular basis, Bing seems to work well – in most cases as well as Google. Habits are hard to break though and I know most of the quirks of Google. Plus – their gmail still does the best job around of defeating spam and phishing.

Frankly, I think this is another smart move by Baidu, another example of a lost opportunity by Yahoo who once were in on the ground floor.

Clarification: I own enough Baidu shares to buy half a Yaris.

Celebrated Indian-born author Rohinton Mistry has strongly objected to his book being dropped from the Mumbai University curriculum. Such a Long Journey was withdrawn after the nationalist Shiv Sena party staged protests against its “derogatory” references to party members.

Mistry labelled the move “a sorry spectacle of book-burning“.

The novel – shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1991 – was on the university’s second-year Bachelor of Arts syllabus.

University officials insist that they have followed the correct procedures before dropping the book which they say contains offensive language…

Sounds as if “who” was offended is more important than principles involving creative thought and freedom.

The book is about Gustad Noble, a Parsi bank clerk struggling to provide for his family. It holds a mirror throughout his life of Mumbai in the early 1970s.

It contains observations about the Shiv Sena – sometimes in conversations and sometimes in narrative – which are none too complimentary about their politics.

“In this sorry spectacle of book-burning and book-banning, the Shiv Sena has followed its depressingly familiar, tediously predictable script of threats and intimidation that Mumbai has endured since the organisation’s founding in 1966,” a statement released by the author said.

“More bobbing, weaving, and slippery behaviour is no doubt in the offing. But one thing remains: a political party demanded an immediate change in syllabus, and Mumbai University provided deluxe service via express delivery, making the book disappear the very next day.”

The photo CNN decided to crop before using it to top their article

Britain’s advertising watchdog has censured an Italian ice cream manufacturer over an advertisement depicting a heavily pregnant nun that appeared ahead of a papal visit to the UK.

The ad featuring the strapline “immaculately conceived” over an image of the expectant sister spooning from a tub of Antonio Federici ice cream was “likely to cause widespread offense,” the Advertising Standards Authority ruled…

The watchdog rejected the manufacturer’s claims that it was “using gentle humor” to convey the message that “ice cream is our religion…”

“We concluded that to use such an image in a light hearted way to advertise ice cream was likely to cause serious offence to readers, particularly those who practised the Roman Catholic faith.”

The Antonio Federici ad is the company’s second invoking religious imagery to fall foul of the ASA. An advertisement featuring a nun and a priest eyeing each other for a kiss was banned in July last year.

The ice cream company said the ASA’s ruling amounted to censorship of artistic freedoms ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain this week.

It said it had also been banned from showing another advertisement showing two men dressed as priests apparently on the brink of sharing a kiss. The ASA has not published any ruling on the ad.

A statement from Antonio Federici said the company was seeking to relaliate by securing a series of billboard advertisements along the route the pope’s motorcade is expected to take during his visit to London.

Har!