Tag: hacks

NJ worst in the US for racist jailtime. Ban book about it from prisons.

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New Jersey bans book about racist NJ policies

❝ “At least two New Jersey state prisons have banned inmates from reading a highly praised book that links racial discrimination and mass incarceration.”

❝ “Michelle Alexander’s 2012 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is off limits to inmates as a matter of policy at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton and Southern State Correctional Facility in Delmont, according to documents provided in response to a public records request from the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU chapter plans to send a letter to state corrections officials on Monday demanding access to the book for inmates in the state, which the group said has the worst U.S. black-white incarceration disparity.

“The New Jim Crow chronicles how people of color are shut out of society by mass incarceration,” the letter states. “That the very prisoners who experience the worst racial disparity in incarceration in the country should be prohibited from reading a book whose precise purpose is to examine and educate about that disparity adds insult to injury.”

People who make racist rules always claim they aren’t racists. Conservatives and chickenshit moderates call that progress.

Fighting back and winning is progress.

Leak of incompetent Senate encryption bill prompts immediate condemnation

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Burr&Feinstein DHS buddies
Burr and Feinstein turn their backs on liberty and privacy

❝ Security researchers and civil liberties advocates on Friday condemned draft legislation leaked from the U.S. Senate that would let judges order technology companies to assist law enforcement agencies in breaking into encrypted data.

The long-awaited bill is emerging just as the U.S. Justice Department redoubles its efforts to use the courts to force Apple to help unlock encrypted iPhones.

❝ The Senate proposal is an attempt to resolve long-standing disagreements between the technology community, which believes strong encryption is essential to keep hackers and others from disrupting the Internet, and law enforcement officials worried about being unable to pry open encrypted devices and communications of criminal suspects.

But the draft bill, leaked online Thursday evening, was planned as an overly vague measure that added up to a ban on strong encryption.

❝ Kevin Bankston, director of the Open Technology Institute, said in a statement it was the “most ludicrous, dangerous, technically illiterate tech policy proposal of the 21st century…”

❝ …The most current draft of the proposal…would give judges broad authority to order tech companies to hand over data in “an intelligible format” or provide “technical assistance” to access locked data. It does not spell out what form the data must take or under what circumstances a company would be forced to help…

In a joint statement, the authors of the bill, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, said they were still working with stakeholders to finalize the bill…

Two leading representatives of the kind of incompetents Americans elect and re-elect to regulate our lives and freedom. Sad commentary on the level of political hacks who can always be counted upon to fall to their knees at the slightest request from someone with a uniform and a badge.

❝ The proposal from Burr and Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee respectively, is expected to face a steep climb in a gridlocked U.S. Congress during an election year.

“For the first time in America, companies that want to protect their customers with stronger security will not have that choice,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and vocal privacy advocate told reporters Friday. “They will be required by federal law per this statute to decide how to weaken their products to make Americans less safe.”

Matt Blaze, a professor and computer security expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said on Twitter that the bill was worse than a failed effort by President Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s to require a special computer chip in phones to give the U.S. government a way to monitor encrypted conversations.

Same as it ever was, eh?

The FCC loses a half-million online comments on their crap net neutrality proposal

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The FCC somehow publicly lost public comments on a petition they were mandated to create. It might not matter, anyway. Telecoms are outlobbying net neutrality advocates 3:1. That’s all that matters in all of American government. But due to one provision, the FCC was at least forced to talk about it.

In April, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a new rule that would allow for corporations to discriminate against certain kinds of speech on the web. By rule, the commission put the proposal up for public comment.

Yesterday, the FCC’s website somehow lost public access to signatures and public comments for a petition to stop it.

Today, the commission said it was vowing to give those people a chance to file again.

…The spokeswoman also politely asked everyone to “please be assured that the commission … is committed to making sure that everyone trying to submit comments will have their views entered into the record.”

The record — if they can keep the website up and running — will show that almost all of the comments are against the new rules, which shouldn’t be a surprise. As former FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell pointed out today, consumers stand to gain nothing by having increased FCC oversight of the internet.

On the other end of the influence game, telecoms lobbying for the new rules are outspending their opponents 3 to 1. So you know they stand to gain something.

So, the FCC gets to take sides. Who do you think they will side with? Corporations and their paid lobbyists? That is the official lobbyists in addition to the political hacks who build their careers on donations from special business interests.

Or will they come down on the side of you and me?

Don’t hold your breath too long.

Euro politicians have time to tell restaurants how to serve olive oil

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olive oil

Critics ridiculed European Union bureaucrats on Saturday for taking time off fighting the euro zone’s debt crisis to impose strict new rules on how restaurants serve olive oil.

From January 1, 2014, eateries will be banned from serving oil to diners in small glass jugs or dipping bowls, and forced instead to use pre-sealed, non-refillable bottles that must be disposed of when empty…

…Critics say the rules are a sop to Europe’s olive oil producers, and will only add to the frustration felt by many towards a bloated EU bureaucracy regarded as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Europeans…

The Commission said its proposal was supported by 15 out of 27 EU member governments, including the continent’s main olive oil producers – Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal – which are among the countries worst affected by the euro crisis…

German newspaper Sueddetsche Zeitung described the plan as “the weirdest decision since the legendary curvy cucumber regulation”, referring to now-defunct EU rules on the shape of fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets.

The regulations are based on rules in force in Portugal since 2005, and are part of an EU initiative to help olive oil producers hit by rising operating costs and falling profits in recent years.

But Enzo Sica, owner of Italian restaurant Creche des Artistes close to the EU quarter of Brussels, said the rules would prevent him from buying his extra virgin olive oil direct from a traditional supplier in Italy.

“They say they’re thinking about consumers, but this will increase costs for us and our customers as well. In this time of crisis, surely they should be worrying about other things rather than stupid stuff like this.”

Who says Europeans can’t and won’t learn from Americans. The EU is simply following the examples of social stupidity expressed in reactionary regulations embraced so thoroughly by Republicans and a few other idiots in Congress.

EU hacks understand they’d be thrown out of office if they tried to pass useless laws banning medical care and women’s rights – so, they pick on absurdities which will at least get the support of anachronistic segments of Euro-capitalism.

UPDATE: Olive oil still drives the pols bonkers – but, uproar from citizens stopped this particular bit of stupidity from succeeding.

Sarah Palin to swing eedjit vote for John McCain

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Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Republican John McCain helped turn Sarah Palin into a household name during last year’s presidential campaign. Now she is returning the favor.

Palin, the former Alaska governor who was McCain’s vice presidential running mate last year, will campaign for McCain’s re-election bid as a senator from Arizona in March…

“I’m looking forward to getting back on the campaign trail with my former running mate, and I know my fellow Arizonans will welcome her as well,” McCain said. “Sarah energized our nation and remains a leading voice in the Republican Party.”

McCain has no announced challenger yet for the Republican nomination but conservative radio talk show host J.D. Hayworth has talked of possibly challenging the Vietnam war hero.

Palin is now a star of the Republican Party and a big draw on the fund-raising circuit. She is a Fox News contributor.

I think they deserve each other. They are a perfect analogue of the Old Guard Republican hacks combining with the teabagger version of populist idiocy.