Censored by Google Alerts - Crossed Crocodiles on AFRICOM  Read more 

I get this at the site. There’s a post at Kos’ place describing how a Northern District of California court shut down the place — which seems to me a bad thing.
I note in passing that wikipedia is not an unbiased source; but wikileaks was open for a slightly more focused reason: to get the word out to people via the Web regarding things like the Rules of Engagement in Iraq, the effect of bank fraud on Kenya’s recent elections, and other unsavory bits of data various and sundry governments and corporations want to keep a lid upon.

Seriously, I am so sorry to hear about this. Anyone who has details about his blog, I’d appreciate hearing them.

(CNN) — Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China’s Xinhua news agency reports.

The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.

The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them.

Police have detained 24 municipal inspectors and are investigating more than 100 in the death of Wei Wenhua, a 41-year-old construction company executive, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The swift action by officials reflects concerns that the incident could spark larger protests against authorities, whose heavy-handed approach often arouses resentment.

On Monday Wei happened on a confrontation in the central Chinese province of Hubei between city inspectors and villagers protesting over the dumping of waste near their homes.

A scuffle developed when residents tried to prevent trucks from unloading the rubbish, Xinhua said.

When Wei took out his cell phone to record the protest, more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes, Xinhua said. Wei was dead on arrival at a Tianmen hospital, the report said.  Read more 

RECENTLY I posted on YouTube’s yanking of a vlogger’s account due to the torture practices he was exposing that are perpetrated by Egyptian police. I was definitely disappointed in YouTube, although I sort of expect any large corporate entity to ultimately suppress free speech, because inevitably, free speech involves telling the truth, and at the end of that road can be found many ideas that might not support the agenda and behavior of corporate entities. As the RAND Corporation, “a California based think-tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex” sees it:

RAND maintains “homegrown terrorism” will not be the result of jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who ’challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is serving to destroy the world’s ecology, indigenous cultures, and individual welfare.’ …

Further, RAND claims anti-globalists and radical environmentalists ’exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida’ and pose ’a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business.’

—Truthout.org, The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak

So through these types of statements, we begin to see it all come together. The War of the future, already taking place now. Those who refuse to consider any ill effects upon the world and the animals and the poor and simply the common gente, a breed who refuses to let go of a philosophy of greed, despite the mounting consequences of such a failed paradigm vs. those of us concerned first and foremost with the weakest of us, the meekest of us, the poorest of us, and Mother Earth herself.  Read more 

Don’t you just love it when Republicans speak of death, destruction, and destitution as a “win-win” situation? They’re so good at it, it just comes naturally to them. The important point of the MJ story:

That’s a tradition that goes back to the origins of the nation. The founding fathers saw the press as the lifeblood of democracy—only informed voters could compose a true democracy, they believed—and thus created a postal system that gave favorable rates to small periodicals. (George Washington actually supported mailing newspapers for free.) For 200 years, small periodicals and journals of opinion were given special treatment.

The 2007 rate hikes, which went into effect this summer, changed that. Now, periodicals are still expected to cover attributable costs and pay no overhead, but because the cost of delivering mail has gone up, rates within the class have gone up as well. In advance of the rate hike, the Postal Service submitted a proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission that would have raised the rates in the class more or less evenly. The PRC rejected the proposal in favor of a rate package put forward by Time Warner that, unsurprisingly, hands small periodicals much steeper rate hikes than their large counterparts.  Read more 

Why would giving the telcos control over the Internet by destroying Net Neutrality* produce anything more than massive suckitude?**

Especially since you know that as soon as they get control, they’re going to start censoring everything (Via)?  Read more 

You will enjoy this. A lot. It occurs to me, serious and unfunny person that I am, that it makes a lot of sense for our side, and those Powers That Be in the Party in particular, reach out to media professionals. This is a slick, catchy, easy to remember, low cost, funny way of making a point. Surely only the most dour and constipated with religion and “moral values” would fail to laugh. You can read more about the people who made it here.

Hat tip to reader Peggy Ann. Luv ya, kitten!

I’ve been on the Intertubes long enough to have heard this story many times. Readers, share with us your own experience, we want to know if it’s typical. I’m protecting the innocent and blanking a few details for the sake of privacy:

I went to a very respectable public school today. Had to wait for someone important to come see me while I sat alone - unsupervised, unverified but, I was detected for metal - with the kiddies. Surfed the web. Thought I would check out the Mighty Corrente Building. To my surprise - access denied! [so and so] Public Schools and Microsoft: A PC on every desktop and every one running Microsoft.

snip

[Corrente] is banned out of the [so and so] public school system too. Actually I tried a
good number of lefty sites and the only one I could get through to was,
iirc, Juan Cole.

snip

Just a note: a person close to me has a government/military job on
the east coast. Though he can view the Drudge Report at work,
Correntewire is blocked.  Read more 

And don’t call me “Shirley:”

James Rupert, Newsday
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

(06-21) 04:00 PDT Kabul, Afghanistan — The war against the Taliban has gone badly these last months, but Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency has devised a secret plan to reverse the tide of bad news.

In a coordinated action this week, the intelligence operatives drove up to TV stations and newspapers in muscular SUVs and dropped off an unsigned letter ordering journalists to report more favorable news about the government.

In particular, the letter said, they should avoid “materials which deteriorate people’s morale and cause disappointment to them.”

The men from the National Security Directorate would not give their names, and to better ensure secrecy, the letter instructed journalists that “publishing or copying this document is unauthorized.”  Read more 

Gore makes a major speech and calls Bushit, describing the current US administration as “a renegade band of rightwing extremists.”

And—I know this will surprise you—our “liberal,” “left-leaning” “free” press gives the story not one single column inch of coverage. Zip, zilch, nada.

 Read more