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Sen. Feinstein Says Anarchist Cookbook Should Be "Removed From the Internet"
schwit1 writes with this snippet from Ars Technica: In the wake of the Thursday arrest of two women accused of attempting to build a bomb, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote on her website that the 1971 book on bomb making, which may have aided the terror suspects in some small way, should be "banned from the Internet."
The senator seems to fail to realize that not only has The Anarchist Cookbook been in print for decades (it's sold on Amazon!), but also has openly circulated online for nearly the same period of time. In short, removing it from the Internet would be impossible.
The senator seems to fail to realize that not only has The Anarchist Cookbook been in print for decades (it's sold on Amazon!), but also has openly circulated online for nearly the same period of time. In short, removing it from the Internet would be impossible.
Feinstein, the late senator Ted Stevens (Internet is through tubes) are senior citizens who are behind the times when it comes to technology. They may not be able to comprehend "internet" not because they are stupid, but because its a truly radical idea which is impossible to fathom for the many who did not grow up with it. This is one of the reasons you still have senators or congress members - mostly old - who does not use even email.
Recently Indian government tried to ban the documentary "India's daughter." The Indian home minister is a seventy plus Rajnath Singh. His first reaction is to "ban" the documentary. He knows "ban" worked in the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies.
Tat Tvam Asi
It works like this:
American politicians have worked for decades to decode the U.S. voter and their habits. They spend millions of dollars annually on "focus groups" and "mock votes" in order to successfully determine the most advantageous avenues to manipulate the electorate into supporting them in their efforts to remove rights from the electorate, disenfranchise the electorate, and more firmly establish the elected as a modern day aristocracy in spite of US law and constitutional impetus. Look up "wedge issue" to see how the party leadership will use specific issues to fracture a voting block and turn them against each other. Watch how each party incites their proscribed demographic to feel threatened by others. Note how politicians play at fighting the other party, but vote as a whole when presented with an opportunity to curtail, circumvent, or remove rights guaranteed to the people by the constitution and/or bill of rights. And pay special attention to the media mouthpieces when they call out their leaders on their faults. It provides a voice for people's recognition of total incongruity on the part of their leaders, but by voicing it the supporters' ire is assuaged and they go merrily and sheepishly back to fighting the opposition and completely forget to hold their leaders accountable.
In America there are two political parties. They are not liberal and conservative. They are not Republican and Democrat. They are simply the elected and the electorate. Anyone who forgets this or fails to see it, at any time, is a pawn, a sheep...and therefore untrustworthy, compromised. They are exactly equal to those religious people that atheists and sceptics so vociferously condemn. They have lost control of their intellect and sacrificed their freedom and judgement in pursuit of an empty purse. They cannot be trusted even with their own self interest, much less the advancement of society as a whole.
So, welcome to America, where Rome is burning and all anyone does is comment on how good it looks in HD. Stay away if you value your sanity, your freedom, and your connection to humanity.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
~10 years old. Wanted to make a large "Silvesterknaller" (small explosive for New Years).
Went to a public library and looked at a few old books, describing how to make black powder and other things that go boom.
Bought a few chemicals, build an electronic igniter and it went boom. It was too easy to achieve so I lost interest in blowing things up.
It's like the brouhaha about 3D printing guns. Every hardware store has better stock to make something that accelerates a projectile /FacePalm
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
From over here in Europe, the whole of the US looks like a one party state with the party having two artificial flavours.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most people think of their location in terms of political entities rather than geography.
there are examples of the opposite. people in canary islands, for example, refer to themselves as "canarios", not "spanish". that makes sense, however, because the term isn't inaccurate.
Point taken, but in that case, their term is more specific and helps distinguish them from a larger group -- the exact opposite of the way you want to use "Americans." And you'll note that they do not call themselves "Africans" despite their islands being geographically part of that continent.
That's not just an American thing.
can you remember any other instance where the name of a whole continent is appropriated by a single country as "nationality"? thought so.
The Republic of India, generally called "India" and whose citizens are generally called "Indians", despite sharing the subcontinent of India with Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Do you call the citizens of the Republic of India "RoIans"?
Besides which, the idea that it's an "appropriation" is silly. Next to no one uses it that way in everyday conversation or refers to themselves primarily that way, because it doesn't tell you anything useful about them. If I tell you someone is an American in the nationality sense, that lets you make some generalizations about them -- you know he probably speaks English, you know to a degree what kind of food he eats, what TV shows he watches, who the leader of his country is, etc. (Feel free to snark if you wish here). If I use it in the geographic sense, it tells me... what, exactly, besides the tautology that they live on either the North American or South American continent? That they set their clocks between UTC-3 and UTC-11? Heck, just telling me if a person lives north or south of the equator tells me more about where they live than saying that they live in the Americas.
In short, when a word has multiple meanings, people naturally gravitate towards the meaning that's most useful. Referring to someone as an American in the sense you want to use it is only slightly more useful than telling me they're a Terran.
you should be able to understand how nonsensical this looks from anywhere outside united states.
i know that this is customary in the states, but you guys should also note that this is the internets where you are being read.
It's used that way in plenty of other countries, including Canadians, who would have as much right to be annoyed by the supposed "appropriation" as anyone else. My impression is that they're proud of their demonym and have no great yearning to lump themselves in with a couple dozen other countries by calling themselves "Americans."
Furthermore, at a guess I'd expect that "American" in the nationality sense came into common man-on-the-street usage (as opposed to political tracts or whatnot) outside the US before it did so inside it, because for the first 75 years -- prior to the US Civil War -- most people here tended to designate themselves and others by their state rather than national identity. They didn't primarily think and speak of themselves as Americans but as Virginians, Vermonters, Ohioans, Kentuckians, etc.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."