Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Censorship
Bahrain Jails Six Twitter Users for Insulting King
023 hours ago
Source: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
Written by Amira Al Hussaini
Six Twitter users were sentenced to a year in prison each by a Bahrain court on May 15 for allegedly insulting King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on the micro-blogging site.
According to the government-run Bahrain News Agency, the “six suspects” where charged in five different cases “related to the misuse of freedom of expression and defaming His Majesty the King on Twitter.” It added that the six were “charged [with] misusing freedoms of expression and opinion publicly and remanded…in custody ahead of their trial.”
King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain with US Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England. Released to the public domain.
Entire Audience at NJ Gun Hearing Disobeys Senators Orders, Recites Pledge
11 day ago
Source: http://beforeitsnews.com
By JIMALE
Amazing Video – Entire Audience at NJ Gun Hearing Disobeys Senators Orders, Recites Pledge
There was some question that when Second Amendment activist, James Kaleda, was removed from the hearing if the audience was clapping for him or for his removal. I think this video, which took place immediately following that, should clear things up. MORE HERE
NJ Citizen testimony cut off; Chairman sits during Pledge of Allegiance
James Kaleda ejected from hearing by NJ State Troopers
###
As the gun control tyranny continues is the “sleeping giant” beginning to awaken? As is becoming common practice, when those elected officials are called upon to hear the voice of those that elected them and that they are to serve, they are told that they are out of order. Perhaps it is time to change the order and those elected.
DHS Whistleblower Censored from 60 minutes
12 weeks ago
Stream: http://NextNewsNetwork.com
Julia Davis, DHS whistleblower, speaks out on how DHS declared her a “Domestic Terrorist” then dispatched a Blackhawk Helicopter SWAT raid on her home because — She was doing her job protecting the border.
After 60 MINUTES interviewed former DHS Officer Julia Davis – they never aired it… effectively blocking the truth from the American people… because it would destroy the “War on Terror” facade and expose how DHS is brutally abusing their authority.
Rethinking Facebook
02 months ago
Source: http://www.thelibertybeacon.com
By Dave Hodges
Many of us in print and broadcast media are rethinking our association with Facebook. Several of our journalistic brothers and sisters have been censored and/or otherwise treated unprofessionally by this entity. Facebook has become replete with trolls who patrol the cyber corridors of this monolithic entity chastising and censoring whoever exposes the liberal, anti-human, depopulation agenda of the New World Order. Whether it is gun control, criticism of NWO puppet Obama or anything that the Mark Zuckerberg people disagree with, they will kick your Facebook account to the curb for daring to express a legitimate political opinion.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg, The Self-Perceived Purveyor of Integrity and Morality
Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, The Facebook Effect “You have one identity, and the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”
Who appointed Mr. Zuckerberg to be the moral police and the judge of integrity? It sounds like Zuckerberg can take his place with Soros, Gates, Turner, et al., and the rest of the global elite who think they have the right to treat humanity as their own personal property and view the masses as a disposable commodity.
Julian Assange Assessment of Facebook
Whistle blower, Julian Assange, once stated that “Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence. Facebook, Google, Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence to use.”
Never before in American cyber history do we see such an arrogant and agenda serving entity operating their propaganda so far in the open as we do with Facebook. This propaganda end of the New World Order is being blatantly exposed.
A couple of days ago, famed researcher and highly respected journalist, Jon Rappoport was banned from sharing his articles on Facebook. In this instance of blatant censorship, Jon’s banned article was merely a review of certain aspects of American presidents ranging from Nixon to Obama. Like so many of us that understand history and can see the tyrannical path that Obama is trying to take us down, Rappoport identified Obama’s unconstitutional missteps. And for daring to tell the truth, Facebook banned Rappoport for the mere expression of a legitimate personal opinion.
Readers may recall when members of Infowars.com and the popular talk show host, Michael Rivero were banned in December of 2012, until the public outcry for Facebook to reinstate their respective accounts backed Facebook into a corner from which they acquiesced and reinstated the previously banned media figures.
Rules For Thee but Not For Me
Facebook’s does not apply their holier than thou attitude to their own corporate behavior. As Zuckerberg talks about rectifying Americans lack of integrity through timely Facebook exposure, Facebook fails to pay its own fair share of taxes as a result of tax loopholes and deductions. Facebook paid no income tax for the fiscal year 2012, despite reaping $1.1 billion in U.S. corporate profits. While Americans have just been subjected to higher taxes, billion-dollar corporations like Facebook, General Electric, Boeing and Wells Fargo have all been able to avoid paying any corporate income taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice.
Reddit Co-Founder Dissociates From Involvement With Facebook
In a recent interview with CNN, Reddit.com co-founder Alex Ohanian explains that he won’t be investing in Facebook, the largest technology IPO in the history of the Internet.
Facebook founder, Zuckerberg, has stated that he expects to make billions of dollars off of the site’s initial public offering, Ohanian says that he won’t be investing in Facebook in order to enrich Zuckerberg. Ohanian’s reasons for avoiding Facebook as an investment vehicle is tied to the fact that he strongly believes that Facebook’s stance in favor of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA, is very dangerous to the viability of the internet.
I applaud Ohanian’s stance as it is clear that Ohanian respects free speech. It is safe to say that Facebook and CISPA are two birds of a feather as they both support blatant censorship regarding views which differ from their own.
Tax evasion, legal or not, seems to be a trait of Facebook personnel, both past and present. Not only does Facebook not pay taxes while the rest of America is suffering under crushing tax increases, Zuckerberg’s former co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, renounced his U.S. citizenship back in August of 2012 in order to pay less tax. I guess that birds of a feather Facebook together.
Can it be said that Facebook is a shining example of duplicity and censorship? I think so and I welcome being banned by the monolith because soon Zuckerberg will learn the lesson the phrase “pride goeth before the fall.” Someday, Facebook will face some very stiff competition and the millions who have been irritated by the trolls which send warning messages for sending simple personal messages could very well be looking for new jobs. Technology is fleeting and Facebook could someday go the way of Myspace.
My Recent Personal Experiences With Facebook
A couple of nights ago, I was trying to send an invitation to former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney through Facebook’s messaging system for the purpose of inviting her to appear on my talk show. Facebook blocked my invitation with a popup which said my ability to message has been suspended. Yet, I was able to send messages to other people on Facebook, just not Congresswoman McKinney.
Before attempting to message Congresswoman McKinney, I contacted a mutual acquaintance Lorie Meacham, about assisting her help in procuring McKinney as a guest on my talk show in order to discuss her knowledge of government sponsored child sex trafficking (e.g. Dyncorp). As I was online with Meacham, I tried to message McKinney and was blocked. To me, this means that Facebook was monitoring our communication and proactively blocked me. Isn’t interesting that I was blocked because I was interested in the topic of child sex trafficking? Coincidence? Perhaps. Lorie Meacham reported today that she is unable to message me either as the censorship of the free expression of ideas continues..
None of this is surprising given Facebook’s long associations with organizations like In Q tel which is the communications arm of the CIA. Here is a short video which helps the viewer understand the origins of Facebook and who it truly serves and how and why this organization got its start.
Let my hypothesize with some of you who have no problem giving Facebook any and all information about yourself because “you have nothing to hide.” What if Facebook is a big data mining device? It is, read your service agreement. What if this information in conjunction with other data is ever used to determine your loyalty to the government? It could, again, read your service agreement. What if this data would someday be used to decide who lives and dies based upon your threat matrix score? If you don’t think this is possible google the MIAC Report and all of a sudden, I start looking more like Paul Revere than a mentally ill conspiracy theorist.
More Facebook Transgressions
I have also had issues with my personal settings on Facebook. In my life, I have only lived in two areas (Denver and Phoenix) and reported that to Facebook as I was setting up my account. Yet, Facebook has me listed of visiting some third location called “Ready Aim Fire” in New Jersey. Given my Second Amendment advocacy, should I consider this to be an example of Facebook humor or is this a thinly veiled threat from our unapproachable Facebook overlords who will charge me $89 to investigate? Please note, I have never been to New Jersey and I am unable to reset this feature.
Lorie Meacham also related to me of a same-day Facebook exchange she was having with a friend in New Zealand about the recent FBI arrest of Malcolm X’s grandson as he was planning to go to Iran. The conversational text between the two parties was erased by Facebook for being “abusive.” Lorie and I are still trying to make sense how a conversation can be considered to be abusive as long as both parties are willing participants? The short answer is that it is not abusive and constitutes, yet, another example of blatant censorship. These actions are taking place because Facebook has obviously instructed its trolls to censor certain stories as was the case with Jon Rappoport.
That same night and wanting to achieve some measure of privacy, Lorie and I decided to take the conversation off of Facebook to the phone. This is where our evening became very weird. Lorie and I were talking about the possibility of discussing these censorship events on my show and our call was immediately terminated (I was on a land line) and we could not re-establish a connection.
I have subsequently related these stories to Julie Telgenhoff. Julie sponsors one of the most dynamic groups on Facebook entitled, A Sheep No More. Julie has indicated that her members have recently experienced difficulty sharing articles with other Facebook members. Most of the articles are critical of the Obama administration as well as espousing views which run contrary to the New World Order (Agenda 21, etc.). This should demonstrate to everyone which side of the fence that Facebook sits on.
My phone disconnect from Lorie Meacham and the seemingly instantaneous monitoring and censorship should not be surprising given the fact that Facebook’s origins are tied to the CIA’s In-Q-tel (refer to the above video).
I personally do not need Facebook to deliver my message especially with what is coming. Mark my words, in some future date, not too far from now, most people are going to forget about Facebook and will have moved on to the next toy.
Conclusion
Since I aired my frustration with Facebook on my talk show, All of us would be wise to review our Facebook terms of service. Facebook reserves the right to gather all internet habits that you have. They reserve the right to share your data with anyone. They are creating profiles which they are allegedly sharing with the government.
To the trolls who work for this entity, do you really think that you are going to have a seat at the table of the New World Order? Do you think they will let you hang out with them under Denver International Airport in the vast expanse of tunnels which runs through the mile high state when their contrived set of disasters are visited upon us? Or will you trolls end up like so many Brown Shirts from the past in which you will be cast aside without a second thought upon the stockpile of humanity?
And to all of us, we have bigger fish to fry than Facebook. Venting our indignation against such a tool of censorship and oppression is a waste of time. We need to keep directing our attention on the gardeners, not their tools. For it is the gardeners who are trying to erase most of humanity from the planet.
History is filled with examples in which a problem is just a solution in disguise. The research on intention as a force in the universe has clearly demonstrated that if we think about the things that don’t want, we will get more of what we don’t want. As we call attention to the great level of injustice which presently dominates world affairs, let’s simultaneously call attention to the fact that there is a spiritual solution to every problem.
I choose to not the let the Facebook issue dominate my thoughts. I have exposed Facebook for what it is, now let Mr. Zuckerberg own his own Karma. Realize that Facebook only has the power to ban a few of us, but if we don’t give Facebook more attention than what they deserve, our collective messages of freedom, self-determination and ultimate empowerment will push forward like a giant tsunami. Subsequently, if Facebook tries to ban and censor everyone who expresses humanity’s inherent desire for freedom, they will be left with no customers and they will die a natural death. Even the dumbed down sheeple lament the fences that keeps them in their pre-designed pastures.
There was freedom before Facebook and there will be freedom after the demise of Facebook. Freedom will always win out over tyranny, so express yourself without fear. Freedom is the wellspring of creativity. The globalists only know how to destroy. We in the freedom movement will push humanity forward in creative ways never before imagined and eventually the corporate despots will be swept away by the forces which will propel humanity to a higher plane of existence.
Untangling Justice: The case of Aaron Swartz
04 months ago
in Censorship, regulation
By Kathy Gill
Commentary: I spent much of Saturday trying to reconcile two very different approaches to justice meted out by the Obama Administration.
The first is old (mid-December) news: British bank HSBC launders money for at least a decade and is fined four weeks earnings. I learned about it Friday from The Daily Show.
Blatant laundering, moving “tainted money from Mexican drug cartels and Saudi banks with ties to terrorist groups.” $15bn in unexplained “bulk cash”.
No indictments.
How can anyone other than a banking executive look at this action on the part of the U.S. government and say, “There is justice here; this is fair and reasonable.”
They can’t. Because it’s not.
The other case is about Aaron Swartz, a talented and extraordinary young man, a technologist and activist. At age 14, he helped develop RSS, the technology that underpins the web’s information subscription system.
Cory Doctorow called him “a full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber.”
In 2011, the DOJ charged Aaron with being a devious hacker out to defraud JSTOR (publisher of academic journals). His trial was slated for April.
At age 26, he killed himself this weekend.
In its obituary, the NY Times notes his sense of public good, reporting that in 2008 he joined forces with Carl Malamud, the founder of public.resource.org, to make legal records freely accessible. Aaron legally obtained about 20 million pages of documents from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the repository for federal judicial documents.
The government shut down the free library program, and Mr. Malamud feared that legal trouble might follow even though he felt they had violated no laws. As he recalled in a newspaper account, “I immediately saw the potential for overreaction by the courts.” He recalled telling Mr. Swartz: “You need to talk to a lawyer. I need to talk to a lawyer.”
Mr. Swartz recalled in a 2009 interview, “I had this vision of the feds crashing down the door, taking everything away.” He said he locked the deadbolt on his door, lay down on the bed for a while and then called his mother.
The federal government investigated but did not prosecute.
Also in 2008, Aaron issued a Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto, calling for scholarly work to be released online in the “grand tradition of civil disobedience.” Research demonstrates that openly accessible publications are cited by others more often than research blocked by digital lock-and-key. This spread of knowledge is good for society as a whole.
In the MIT case, Aaron returned the files; JSTOR did not press charges.
Yet the DOJ, in the person of Carmen M. Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, indicted Aaron, charging him with stealing 4 million documents from MIT and JSTOR.
If convicted, Aaron faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
For a first offense, a victimless crime where more than half of the information was in the public domain and where the “stolen property” had been returned. Where there was no harm and no theft according to one expert witness, only a Minority Report-like “pre-crime” presumption.
His expert witness clearly articulates the weakness of the DOJ case.
I know a criminal hack when I see it, and Aaron’s downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet is not an offense worth 35 years in jail.
[...]
MIT also chooses not to prompt users of their wireless network with terms of use or a definition of abusive practices.
At the time of Aaron’s actions, the JSTOR website allowed an unlimited number of downloads by anybody on MIT’s 18.x Class-A network.
[...]
Aaron Swartz … was an intelligent young man who found a loophole that would allow him to download a lot of documents quickly. This loophole was created intentionally by MIT and JSTOR, and was codified contractually in the piles of paperwork turned over during discovery.
If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate to write a check at the supermarket while a dozen people queue up behind you or to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper. It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence.
You have to ask yourself: who in the Department of Justice did Aaron embarrass so badly back in 2008? Or which academic journal publisher has an “in” with the U.S. government?
Let me close with this observation from lawyer Lawrence Lessig:
Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the “criminal” who we who loved him knew as Aaron.
[...]
He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.
How can anyone other than a publishing executive look at this action on the part of the U.S. government and say “that’s fair and reasonable.”
They can’t. Because it’s not.
***
The mission of the Department of Justice is, in part, “to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior, and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”
They failed on both counts here.
Our public legal system — the one that is supposed to be looking out for us, the citizens of the United States — kowtowed to a British corporation while grinding its heel into a 26-year-old idealist.
We should be ashamed.
We live in a democracy. Tell your friends but just as importantly, tell your Congressmen and our President.
The DOJ was wrong, not once, but twice.
Only we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
First published at The Moderate Voice; edited for typo.
Update: 9:45 pm Sunday
Anonymous hacks MIT.edu (the site was down earlier tonight), calls for reform of computer crime law as well as copyright and intellectual property law, “returning it to the proper principles of common good to the many, rather than private gain to the few.”
PDF of the entire page:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9050702/anonymous-mit-hack.pdf
Kathy Gill (@kegill)has 20 years experience in digital media—both development and instruction. Since 2003, she has taught at the University of Washington and currently manages the website for King County Elections. A political junkie, her consulting work includes four years writing about U.S. politics for about.com, one of the top 10 visited Web content sites on the Internet, and she has worked with Boeing, AT&T Wireless, SAFECO, and Microsoft on intranet projects.
###
[CIM]
This article originally appeared on GeekWire.
Re-blogged with permission.
In respect and support, Aaron’s manifesto is posted below.
Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.
That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.
“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it’s perfectly legal — there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” But there is something we can, something that’s already being done: we can fight back.
Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world.<P>We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Aaron Swartz
July 2008, Eremo, Italy
###
Related Posts:
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”
Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz commits suicide in midst of controversial trial
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”
04 months ago
F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”
Published on May 22, 2012
Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA” at F2C:Freedom to Connect 2012, Washington DC on May 21 2012.
Please support #PDFTribute papers uploaded by academics in honour of Aaron Swartz are being scraped here: http://pdftribute.net/
Icelandic girl fights for right to her own name
04 months ago
Source: http://www.cbc.ca
The Associated Press Posted: Jan 3, 2013 9:49 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 3, 2013 8:36 PM ET
Name isn’t on Iceland’s list of 1,853 female names that fit grammar and pronunciation rules
Blaer Bjarkardottir, 15, left, seen with her mother, Bjork Eidsdottir, in Reykjavik, is bringing legal action against the Icelandic government to allow her to use her name, which is not on the list of 1,853 government-approved female names. (Anna Andersen/Associated Press)
Call her the girl with no name.
A 15-year-old is suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. The problem? Blaer, which means light breeze in Icelandic, is not on a list approved by the government.
“I want to keep it so bad because it’s so beautiful,” Blaer told Carol Off from CBC Radio’s As it Happens.
Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don’t question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay.
In Blaer’s case, her mother said she learned the name wasn’t on the register only after the priest who baptized the child later informed her he had mistakenly allowed it.
“I had no idea that the name wasn’t on the list, the famous list of names that you can choose from,” said Bjork Eidsdottir, adding she knew a Blaer whose name was accepted in 1973. This time, the panel turned it down on the grounds that the word Blaer takes a masculine article, despite the fact that it was used for a female character in a novel by Iceland’s revered Nobel Prize-winning author Halldor Laxness.
Blaer said she loves her name, because it comes from the famous Icelandic writer’s book. The book is about a young boy who is an accomplished pianist, she said, but forgets everything when he meets the beautiful Blaer.
Given names are even more significant in tiny Iceland than in many other countries: Everyone is listed in the phone book by their first names. Surnames are based on a parent’s given name. Even the president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, is addressed simply as Olafur.
Blaer is identified as “Stulka” — or “girl” — on all her official documents, which has led to years of frustration as she has had to explain the whole story at the bank, renewing her passport and dealing with the country’s bureaucracy.
First legal challenge
Her mother is hoping that will change with her suit, the first time someone has challenged a names committee decision in court.
“It’s pretty scary,” said Blaer, referring to being a teenager challenging the government.
Though the law has become more relaxed in recent years — with the name Elvis permitted, inspired by the charismatic rock and roll icon whose name fits Icelandic guidelines — choices like Cara, Carolina, Cesil, and Christa have been rejected outright because the letter “c” is not part of Iceland’s 32-letter alphabet.
“They can allow Elvis, but not Blaer,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”
“The law is pretty straightforward so in many cases it’s clearly going to be a yes or a no,” said Agusta Thorbergsdottir, the head of the committee, a panel of three people appointed by the government to a four-year term.
Other cases are more subjective.
“What one person finds beautiful, another person may find ugly,” she acknowledged. She pointed to “Satania” as one unacceptable case because it was deemed too close to “Satan.”
The board also has veto power over people who want to change their names later in life, rejecting, for instance, middle names like Zeppelin and X.
When the artist Birgir Orn Thoroddsen applied to have his name legally changed to Curver, which he had used in one form or another since age 15, he said he knew full well the committee would reject his application.
“I was inspired by Prince who changed his name to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince and Puff Daddy who changed his to P. Diddy and then Diddy with seemingly little thought or criticism,” he said. “I applied to the committee, but of course I got the `No’ that I expected.”
On his thirtieth birthday, he bought a full-page advertisement that read, “From February 1, 2006, I hereby change my name to Curver Thoroddsen. I ask the nation, my friends and colleagues to respect my decision.”
“I can understand a clause to protect children from being named something like ‘Dog poo,’ but it is strange that an adult cannot change his name to what he truly wants,” he said.
Blaer said she understands wanting to protect children from having names that may subject them to bullying, but she never hears anything negative about her name.
“Everybody thinks it’s so normal,” she said.
Thoroddsen is keeping his protest to the media. But Eidsdottir says she is prepared to take her case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court if a court doesn’t overturn the commission decision on Jan. 25.
“So many strange names have been allowed, which makes this even more frustrating because Blaer is a perfectly Icelandic name,” Eidsdottir said. “It seems like a basic human right to be able to name your child what you want, especially if it doesn’t harm your child in any way.”
Blaer said her lawyer is optimistic about the case — and he has told her he’s not frequently optimistic.
“I am optimistic,” she said. “But I don’t want to be.”
With files from CBC News
© The Associated Press, 2013
###
Reprinted with permission.
Media Quiet About San Antonio Theater Shooting
14 months ago
Source: http://beforeitsnews.com
On Sunday December 17, 2012, 2 days after the CT shooting, a man went to a restaurant in San Antonio to kill his X-girlfriend. After he shot her, most of the people in the restaurant fled next door to a theater. The gunman followed them and entered the theater so he could shoot more people. He started shooting and people in the theater started running and screaming. It’s like the Aurora, CO theater story plus a restaurant!
Now aren’t you wondering why this isn’t a lead story in the national media along with the school shooting?
There was an off duty county deputy at the theater. SHE pulled out her gun and shot the man 4 times before he had a chance to kill anyone. So since this story makes the point that the best thing to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, the media is treating it like it never happened.
Only the local media covered it. The city is giving her a medal next week. Just thought you’d like to know.
###
[CIM]
Here we see yet another example of the mainstream media giving the viewer all the news they need to know, according to their agenda, while censoring out stories that are not promoting that agenda.
China passes rules tightening internet controls
04 months ago
Source: http://www.cbc.ca
The Associated Press Posted: Dec 28, 2012 11:19 AM ET Last Updated: Dec 28, 2012 11:13 AM ET
Communist government says regulations will protect web surfers’ personal information
China is increasing tight controls on internet use and electronic publishing after online reports about official abuses. (Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press)
China’s government tightened controls on internet users today by enacting rules requiring them to register their names, a move made after online postings about graft and abuses rattled the ruling party.
The country’s rubber-stamp legislature approved the internet measures at a closing meeting of a five-day session in Beijing.
Real-name registration will curtail the web’s status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses.
The government says the latest regulation is aimed at protecting web surfers’ personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk email.
The measure will “ensure internet information security, safeguard the lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal entities or other organizations and safeguard national security and social public interests,” the official Xinhua News Agency cited the regulation as stating.
The measure would require network service providers to ask users to provide their real names and other identifying information to allow users to post information publicly or when signing agreements for access to the Internet, fixed telephone lines or mobile phones, Xinhua said.
Beijing promotes internet use for business and education, but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to many websites.
Newspaper says online rumours harm public
The main ruling party newspaper, People’s Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter internet controls, saying rumours spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.
This is a work in progess, a self learning tool and fun little project. Please excuse the slow development as it seems the needed proper time is always lacking. It is my hope that the combination of content and links to other sources of information in this simple blog may help awaken a few of the sleeping masses and encourage and inspire others to initiate their own research, ultimately for each person to be a light to help awaken others. Opinions expressed belong to me, myself and I. Also, a big thank you to all that take the time to visit, it is appreciated :)
