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Library Filtering Update
Following the Internet filter vote in our hometown this week, Jamie McCarthy stopped by the geek compound to rap with us for a bit, and so we recorded a special update to this week's show and have posted it at TheSync.
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I've already e-mailed Jamie to hear what he has to say, but FYI, the AFA has landed in Birmingham, MI , my hometown. Apparently a man was spotted by library officials downloading pornography and escorted from the building, and the AFA is using it as a pretense to fight for censorship here. It's an extremely wealthy, Republican, conservative area, so I expect another difficult struggle. I'll try to keep you all updated.
Also, apparently a bill for library filtering has passed the MI state senate, which may very well nullify Jamie's gains if it is not stopped soon. All slashdotters in MI, write Engler and your local Reps.
---sig---
...regretting having such a high resolution and such poor eyesight. I thought it was going to be Jennie McCarthy!
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
I'm all against the current breed of internet filters. But (open mindedly speaking), imagine that we come across a product (such as Deep Thought?) that could in fact filter 99.9999% perfectly and give a good browsing experince to little kids and innocent adults. Then what?
:)
If I was a kid, and I was showing off the internet to my mom, and if somehow I got stuck in a porn site with windows poppping up as fast as I could close, I too would be embrassed... I too would loath the computer and at the end be driven to push the turn off button.
But say for example the second greatest computer in the entire universe and other diamensions exist.. say that deep thought was invented, it did filtering based on images, sound and did it a sane way (did you see how altavista/images get filter on the amount of skin shown?) wouldnt you want that to be run on your child's computer? Or your work box.. or anything..
Keep your minds open
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I'd be really suspicious if they had blocked my site which details the lawsuit.
Fight Spammers!
"Like a pixie puked on my screen"
Loved it!
If you're sort of behind on the issue your talking about, here are Jamie's earlier stories:
Victory in Holland
Lightning Crashes, An Old Freedom Dies
Censorware and Memetic Warfare
Filtering Internet in Public Libraries
View from the Censorware Trenches
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
This is completely offtopic, but, you know what? I actually cried when I heard the news. 41 times. An unarmed black man was shot fourty-one times. I feel sick to the stomach when I think of the fact that the police can basically unload their weapons on an unarmed man and be found innocent.
Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Casey
--GnrcMan--
I consider this on-topic since this story is about censorship and stuff... anyways, I didn't realize this until I heard it mentioned recently on the radio... John McCain is the guy who authored the CDA!
;)
I think that's enough to say about that, and in case someone forgot (like I had) I thought I'd do a little public service reminding everyone.
Esperandi
And McCain recently advertised on a porn site too, quite odd combo. Too bad Slashdot thought the story sucked. At least they declined it instead of rejecting it (anyone else notice that change?
Sorry, but most of the presidential canidates are utterly clueless on internet issues
Gore - The Clinton Administration signed the Communications Decency Act into law.
McCain - Is strongly in favor of the use of CensorWare in libraries.
Bush - Extemely conservative, and I doubt he's clued in.
Forbes - Seems more clueful than the others. Maybe there's hope with him. *shrug* I personally like his flat tax plan.
There are others, but I don't think they're any more geek-friendly than the ones listed above.
It seems as though the majority of both parties are against us on issues such as CensorWare in libraries. The only solution is to make our voices heard in both parties.
Hosting for Creators: http://rpg-works.net
You forgot that McCain *AUTHORED* the CDA...
Esperandi
After doing a few searches, it turns out McCain also sponsored a required key escrow bill... why aren;t we hearing about any of this anywhere, at least to prove that his legislative passing powers aren't that hot.
Esperandi
Oh, and go search for anything about McCain on AltaVista and it will think you misspelled it... they think you were probably looking for cocaine.
Jennie McCarthy is on the show? great going guys! I'd like to slashdot her...
Make Seven
Username taken, please choose another one.
When did right-wing Republications take over the word "family"? Every bloody wacko anti-free-speech organizations out there has "family" in their name.
I think that they want us to figure that, heck, they're pro-family. And who could be *anti* family? Therefore, opposing them means that you're...what...pro-orphan?
Bah. If pro-family means pro-censorware, chalk me up in the Norwegan bachelor male category.
MCCARTHY HEARINGS CONTINUE IN HOLLAND
"We Will Root Out Right-Wing Zealotry," Vows Community Leader
HOLLAND, MI (UPI) - Community leader Jamie McCarthy continued his set of hearings to uncover and uproot a clandestine right-wing conspiracy to outlaw "objectionable" books, movies, and Internet material. "We are pleased with the progress that we've made so far," explained McCarthy, "and we know that given enough time, we'll chase these loonies back down to Bumpkin, Arkansas, where they belong." McCarthy's Holland Un-Internetarian Activities Committee has already exposed several right-wing individuals and organizations and has forced them to flee in shame.
On the stand today was former presidential contender Gary Bauer, a social conservative who dropped out of the race following the New Hampshire Republican primary. McCarthy's line of questioning, as usual, was direct and to the point: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Family Research Council?" asked McCarthy. Bauer, after consulting with his attorney, took a sip of water and hoarsely whispered "Yes, I am."
"Are you a part of the self-righteous group of people that believes it has the right to impose its narrow-minded view of morality on all children and parents?" thundered McCarthy from the front of the room. "Yes, I am," admitted Bauer, to a raucous audience reaction and a flurry of popping flashbulbs that could only be silenced by the steady beat of the chairman's gavel. Bauer later left the hearings, never to be seen in Holland again.
Such has been the pattern established by McCarthy's committee over the past couple of weeks. Right-wingers, bravely turned in by community leaders and readers of the Slashdot Web site, are quickly processed by the committee and banished forever from decent society. "We are proud of the work we are doing," beamed McCarthy. "Each night when I go to bed, I do it knowing that I've accomplished something worthwhile. Ensuring that our children can grow up at a safe distance from the clutches of the religious fundamentalists and ultra-right-wing zealots is definitely worthwhile."
Scheduled to appear before the committee next week are Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, political strategist Ralph Reed, NRA president Charlton Heston, former United States president George Bush, and former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan.
Richard Gephardt contributed to this story.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Anyway, I'm sure you've figured out by now that people like to call themselves "pro-"something -- just look at the abortion debate. If all the pro-lifers did was refer to the other side as "anti-life" and vice versa, the debate wouldn't go anywhere. (Not that that is going anywhere; it's one of those issues with a slippery middle ground.)
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The shareholder is always right.
Listen, it's not cool with me to assign "-1" to an expression of somebody's religion, however moronic it may be (and believe me, when I wrote that troll I made it as moronic as I was able). What we need is +1: Troll, +1: Flooding (for the copy'n'paste shitheads, who are not trolls), +1: Religious Fanatic (why leave the moslems out?), +1 Insightful, yadda yadda you name it. Bear with me!
Then we allow the user to set thresholds for each category, and make the thresholds switchable between minimum or maximum: I could decide to ignore everything by default, and display only posts with at least one point of Troll, Funny, or Christian. I could also allow everything by default, while filtering out the Trolls etc. Or I could filter out everything but posts with at least two points of Insightful, Redundant, or Stentorian. This would make everybody happy. Each one of us would get exactly the Slashdot s/he deserves!
The best way to do this would be to let us enter filter expressions in SQL in an edit box in the user preferences thing. Hey, why not? Have fields in the db for each mod category and let us filter by 'em as we please. This would be the most flexible and powerful way, and also the least work for Rob with the UI
Since this seems to be the main annoyance with porn sites you didn't intend to visit, take a minute to vote for mozilla bug 29346, a request that mozilla do something about the problem. Or better yet, comment on it (preferably on bugzilla instead of slashdot) in a constructive way, such as suggesting a better solution than the one I proposed.
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The shareholder is always right.
Children's Internet Protection Act (S.97) - sponsored by McCain
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
You should know better. The term "Pro-life" has no other purpose than to prevent rational discussion of the issue, just like "pro-family" (or the the name of the "Defense of the Family Act", which had the sole purpose of outlawing many families and discouraging the formation of others). The nuttier sort of religious people spend their entire lives demonizing everybody in sight. Once they've muddied the waters enough, the sensible people are stuck trying to explain things and clear up the confusion, while the Christians are free to hop up and down shrieking slogans and waving bibles. The slogans cut through the murk, while the sensible explanations don't. Drowing public debate in high drama and Manichean arglebargle always serves the most evil elements in society; see Hitler, Stalin, etc. ad nauseam.
These people don't give a damn about reality or about "solving issues"; they want power, period.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
So historicly, the State of Michigan has been the GOP's Backyard.
.... Just to answer a question.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
One of us has tried gonzo.com while looking for muppet stuff and found porn.
One of us has searched for pet supplies and gotten a completely misleading porn site with the pop-up windows of doom.
One of us was searching for political info and found that a certain gay rights term had been added to the search strings of a bunch of porn sites. ("a bunch of" meaning that the search was completely useless because of the porn 'noise' and a more indirect search had to be used to get the desired info.)
The existance of 'stealth porn' is not (IMHO) a reason to use ineffective filtering software that blocks useful sites. But it is a problem that concerns some people. Neither pretending it doesn't exist, nor insulting those who are concerned are viable solutions. Helping create a non-censoring technological solution is, and will take the wind out of the AFA's sails while you're at it.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
If however you can come up with a group of people who believe both that abortion is wrong and should be outlawed, yet would have one themselves, well.......
Look at McCain's responses to what he would want to do if his teenaged daughter was pregnant (due to sexual assualt?) he first said that in the end the decision would lie with her, then backpedaled to say it would be a family decision. In other words, constitutional amendment for you personal choice for me.
It actually isn't unusual. In (I think) the first Bush race, Dan Quayle was asked a similar question and wishywashed on it. Then his wife came to the podium and showed us what real no-holds-barred pro life is all about, saying that their daughter would carry the baby to term, etc. The strong reaction got more notice than the wishy-washy one, showing that most American's expect "pro-life" leaders to be hypocrits when it comes to their own choices.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The following quote is from the url: http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/Internet_censors hip_bills/1998_bills/HTML/19980721_eff_s tatement.html
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION REACTS TO SENATE PASSAGE OF TWO INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILLS
Statement of Barry Steinhardt President of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
This afternoon the Senate passed two draconian bills that would ultimately prevent access to a wide array of content on the Internet. The two bills were passed as amendments to an appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Department. They were brought up without any notice to those members of the Senate who opposed them and without any opportunity for meaningful debate. In effect, free speech on the Internet was the victim of an ambush.
The initial amendment offered by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Patty Murray (D-WA) would require schools and libraries that receive federal funds for Internet connections to install filtering software to block "inappropriate" material. The second, "the CDA II" bill sponsored by Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) would enact a wide ranging ban on Web posting of material deemed "harmful to minors."
The two bills represent a real and present danger to free speech on the Internet. The McCain/Murray amendment will force libraries and schools to use all-too-frequently crude and overbroad filters that block out a wide array of non-"harmful" speech -- everything from the Quaker home page to the American Association of University Women has been blocked by these programs.
Indeed, you can no more create a computer program to block out one community's view of "indecency" or "obscenity" than you can devise a filtering program to block out misguided proposals by members of Congress. Both may be desirable, but neither are possible.
At first glance, the Coats' CDA II bill appears to be a relatively benign provision that purportedly applies only to commercial pornographers who market to minors. But it is a Trojan horse. Beneath the veneer, it covers any Web site that has a commercial component and which has material that some community will consider "harmful to minors", even if that is not the material for sale. This ranges from the electronic bookseller Amazon.com to EFF's site, which sells books and T-Shirts.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil liberties organizations devoted to ensuring that the Internet remains the world's first truly global vehicle for free speech, and that the privacy and security of all on-line communication is preserved. Founded in 1990 as a nonprofit, public interest organization, EFF is based in San Francisco, California. EFF maintains an extensive archive of information on encryption policy, privacy, and free speech at http://www.eff.org.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
Yes, they seem a lovely pack of jackals and demagogues. Lot's of people are voting for one or the other. In fact, my sister was trying to convince me to become a Republican just the other day <Shudder> "Come on, George W. Bush needs your vote," she said to me, seriously!! <Shudder>. Bleah! And I thought I was convincing her to vote Libertarian... -_-
But there is a solution, and it doesn't involve sitting home on election day! That solution is Harry Browne, Libertarian, a man who is looking out for everyone's rights.
Remember, voting for a candidate who doesn't win may be depressing, but helping to elect a loser is far, far worse!
Vote Browne and send a message to the establishment!
(Incidentally, I've read articles in Forbes magazine that seemed OK, but not only is he out of the race, he was courting the Christian Coalition vote when he was in the race... I think that means, ultimately, filters and censorship under his administration, too.)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)