The last few years, Switzerland has been trying hard to be the good girl in the gang: economy, financial activities, policing and of course military cooperation, to name the essential ones, are all domains in which integration with EU-US aka. NATO has been on the agenda. A month ago or so, this has even stretched to Switzerland obeying Israel's injunction to stop visitors to Palestina from flying. So we shouldn't be all too surprised if this pattern now extends to so-called security.
If the growing political/free speech censorship we are witnessing on the European internet – under all kinds of pretexts: copyright infringement or the specious interpretation of diffamation laws – now extends to Switzerland, it might be interesting to watch what will happen with those activists and bloggers (Beppe Grillo is one name that stands out) who either are hosted or have declared their intention to be hosted on Swiss servers.
Very, very unfortunate, because in more aspects than one (use of disreputable chemicals in their cosmetics, for example), L'Oréal is one of the corporations with the worse record in Europe, going back to their collaboration with the Nazis and other distasteful characters:
Liliane Bettencourt, who recently has made the headlines in the affair bearing her name, is the heiress of L'Oréal, as well as the richest woman in France. Maybe the European Court, as other European institutions that are fast turning themselves into tools of the Atlantist agenda, will soon be as independent as the Criminal Court in The Hague (i.e. – zilch).
"unless you take the iranian authorities word at face value..."
No, I don't, but IMO, Western media and politicians and their propaganda rate much, much lower on a scale of trustworthiness. I can't do the research for you, but here are some places to start from:
I have reason to suspect, and the Western media's targeted hype will not lead me to believe anything different, that the episode hardly distinguishes itself from the incubator babies murdered in Kuwait, Amina Abdallah aka. Tom MacMaster, the preposterous stories currently propagated about Libya and Syria, or even those statements by Iran's president that (according to those who understand farsi) were falsely translated by Reuters but have never stopped circulating ever since. To name just a few.
But, if I may repeat myself, I don't think this is the proper venue to discuss the Neda episode.
FYI. The UK is often seen as the US's poodle (and we may discuss how many poodles the US has – or what kind of kennel the US actually IS). Well, take the image one step further, and look at Denmark as being the parasite worm in the poodle's guts.
And: Denmark's citizens allow this to happen to them, not so much out of of fear than because the vast majority of them don't give a fuck, just as they can't be bothered when their elected representatives, ranging from extreme right to extreme left, overwhelmingly support enacting an anti-emigrant (read: anti-Muslim) agenda. In many respects, today's Denmark embodies a model of the future "they" want for the rest of the world.
Last time I checked on related figures, 24% of all duties levied on music played in public in Italy went to the artists. That's right, twenty-four percent. Guess where the rest went.
A long time ago, a close acquaintance of mine had his composition works played for a whole hour on Belgium's National Radio network, who automatically deposit any relevant duties to SABAM, the entity in that country that allegedly manages artists' rights. Years later, passing through Belgium again and a bit broke, he tried to get paid, but was told that unclaimed duties and related archives were deleted after 10 years. Compare that to the current 70 years or the 100 years such entities would love to keep on claiming copyright for.
The French Socialist Party, like most of Europe's old social-democrats and communist parties of yore, are wimps in decomposition, offering no real alternatives to the existing political order. As such, they are nothing but make-believe plasters on the democratic facade. In my view, Royal's declaration of intent about Hadopi must be understood in the context of the coming Socialist Party primaries and presidental elections, baiting a substantial segment of France's disgruntled youth.
Who cares about 16 minutes? ObL died in Dec. 2001, and his funeral was even reported at the time by Fox, of all propaganda outlets. That is the real problem about the NYT and others of the same ilk, not whether they act as sock puppets of the circles of power in a more or less efficient manner.
... on Amazon (UK, DE, FR, etc. – when I was still making my purchases there: after their trashing of Wikileaks, I've pretty much moved to PriceMinister, which so far I find much more streamlined). Typically: a book from a European publisher, still in print and sold as new for, say, 20 euros, and offered as used by Amazon's "affiliates" in Europe for, say, 8 euros, might be offered, also second-hand, by a US seller for 62.56 US$ or some other ridiculous sum. I used to think that some people didn't quite understand the mechanisms of currency exchange, but apparently it might also be a question of algorithms on the loose.
If I do have my statistical probabilities straight, it's still quite a bit of hassle in light of the likeliness that YOU will be the one whose laptop gets searched. And, commentary to others, it's extremely doubtful that the manpower at a border crossing either has the time or the competence at their disposal to scan a laptop on the spot. Meaning that your laptop will get confiscated anyway, temporarily at least.
Doubtful. In case you haven't noticed, and at this point in time please turn your eyes towards Libya if you haven't, "they" do pretty much what they please regardless of whatever quaint statutes you believe in.
Keep in mind that as useful as they may be, such installments will just as easily attract unwanted attention to your little person. In other words, from the viewpoint of the warped minds of certain people, why would you want to encrypt your stuff if you're not guilty to begin with? Then you risk getting guantanamoed simply because you refuse to be cooperative and tell "them" your password. I believe you'd be even worse off if your harddisk had been "self-destructed" and you weren't even able to provide any evidence about its contents. On my last trip to the US, I chose not to bring my laptop and put an inactive and cleaned-up SIM in my cell phone. Webmail is accessible from anywhere, and essential files can be uploaded to a server somewhere.
Too bad I missed on this one. Once a dear friend of mine had some of his music (Ligeti-like stuff), which had been registered with... SABAM, played on the Belgian national radio network. A whole hour of it. Shortly after he left Europe for a long, long time. Well over a decade later, as he happened to pass through Brussels, he contacted SABAM to collect his money, but was told that they didn't keep records older than 10 years. Mildly amusing.
In OSX, I think that the combined use of Firefox (cookie settings in the prefs + additions NoScript! and Adblock Plus), Little Snitch and MacScan will keep you free from most of the unwanted crap. Occasionally, though, some sites just won't work properly on Firefox, or require cookies to work as expected, which makes the use of Safari necessary. I try to take that as a lesser evil, like keeping my home ad-free but having to suffer some visual pollution when I'm driving around.
"I think internet providers should give customers a test to determine their level of technical competence. People who are deemed to be morons should not be allowed access to the internet. Problem(s) solved."
Sounds to me like getting rid of the nobility by chopping their heads off. Do you realize how many IPs - yes, providers - are morons themselves, either as single individuals or as organisations? If you're an IP yourself, pardon me, and if you think that wisdom is a feature of IPs, well, think again.
Good girl
The last few years, Switzerland has been trying hard to be the good girl in the gang: economy, financial activities, policing and of course military cooperation, to name the essential ones, are all domains in which integration with EU-US aka. NATO has been on the agenda. A month ago or so, this has even stretched to Switzerland obeying Israel's injunction to stop visitors to Palestina from flying. So we shouldn't be all too surprised if this pattern now extends to so-called security.
If the growing political/free speech censorship we are witnessing on the European internet – under all kinds of pretexts: copyright infringement or the specious interpretation of diffamation laws – now extends to Switzerland, it might be interesting to watch what will happen with those activists and bloggers (Beppe Grillo is one name that stands out) who either are hosted or have declared their intention to be hosted on Swiss servers.
For (not) doing just that...
Lest anyone should think Italy is turning into a paradise of Enlightenment:
http://torrentfreak.com/italian-isps-sued-for-ignoring-btjunkie-blockade-110713/
L'Oréal (who are they?)
Very, very unfortunate, because in more aspects than one (use of disreputable chemicals in their cosmetics, for example), L'Oréal is one of the corporations with the worse record in Europe, going back to their collaboration with the Nazis and other distasteful characters:
http://www.voltairenet.org/Histoire-secrete-de-L-Oreal
(in French)
For those of you who know Spanish: http://www.voltairenet.org/%E2%80%A8La-historia-secreta-de-L-Oreal
Liliane Bettencourt, who recently has made the headlines in the affair bearing her name, is the heiress of L'Oréal, as well as the richest woman in France. Maybe the European Court, as other European institutions that are fast turning themselves into tools of the Atlantist agenda, will soon be as independent as the Criminal Court in The Hague (i.e. – zilch).
Whose propaganda is the best
"unless you take the iranian authorities word at face value..."
No, I don't, but IMO, Western media and politicians and their propaganda rate much, much lower on a scale of trustworthiness. I can't do the research for you, but here are some places to start from:
http://blogghete.blog.dada.net/post/1207099806/NEDA%3A+UN+FALSO+PACCHIANO
(deconstruction, note that it's in Italian)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shp7HE2YA_c&skipcontrinter=1
http://edition.cnn.co m/2009/WORLD/meast/06/25/iran.ambassador/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-5121532-503543.h tml
as well as: http://www.voltairenet.org/The-CIA-and-the-Iranian-experiment
I have reason to suspect, and the Western media's targeted hype will not lead me to believe anything different, that the episode hardly distinguishes itself from the incubator babies murdered in Kuwait, Amina Abdallah aka. Tom MacMaster, the preposterous stories currently propagated about Libya and Syria, or even those statements by Iran's president that (according to those who understand farsi) were falsely translated by Reuters but have never stopped circulating ever since. To name just a few.
But, if I may repeat myself, I don't think this is the proper venue to discuss the Neda episode.
Starting? Welcome to the World (intro)
FYI. The UK is often seen as the US's poodle (and we may discuss how many poodles the US has – or what kind of kennel the US actually IS). Well, take the image one step further, and look at Denmark as being the parasite worm in the poodle's guts.
Re: Re: Terrorism?
He probably was a patsy, chosen for his mental track record.
Re: Denmark's pols seem to be losing their collective minds.
And: Denmark's citizens allow this to happen to them, not so much out of of fear than because the vast majority of them don't give a fuck, just as they can't be bothered when their elected representatives, ranging from extreme right to extreme left, overwhelmingly support enacting an anti-emigrant (read: anti-Muslim) agenda. In many respects, today's Denmark embodies a model of the future "they" want for the rest of the world.
Re: Iran
Pardon me, but the "Neda episode" doesn't have much to do with all this. It has been proven (look around the net) to be a setup.
Re: Re: Where does the money go?
You may call these:
http://tinyurl.com/4xlfrhd
the Mafia, but it's a bit untraditional.
Where does the money go?
Last time I checked on related figures, 24% of all duties levied on music played in public in Italy went to the artists. That's right, twenty-four percent. Guess where the rest went.
A long time ago, a close acquaintance of mine had his composition works played for a whole hour on Belgium's National Radio network, who automatically deposit any relevant duties to SABAM, the entity in that country that allegedly manages artists' rights. Years later, passing through Belgium again and a bit broke, he tried to get paid, but was told that unclaimed duties and related archives were deleted after 10 years. Compare that to the current 70 years or the 100 years such entities would love to keep on claiming copyright for.
'nuff said.
Wimps, smokescreen
The French Socialist Party, like most of Europe's old social-democrats and communist parties of yore, are wimps in decomposition, offering no real alternatives to the existing political order. As such, they are nothing but make-believe plasters on the democratic facade. In my view, Royal's declaration of intent about Hadopi must be understood in the context of the coming Socialist Party primaries and presidental elections, baiting a substantial segment of France's disgruntled youth.
Stubborn On Vision, Flexible On Details...
and Sleezy On Wikileaks: haven't used a centime on Amazon ever since, discovered plenty of other sites instead.
What really matters?
Who cares about 16 minutes? ObL died in Dec. 2001, and his funeral was even reported at the time by Fox, of all propaganda outlets. That is the real problem about the NYT and others of the same ilk, not whether they act as sock puppets of the circles of power in a more or less efficient manner.
Noticed something similar...
... on Amazon (UK, DE, FR, etc. – when I was still making my purchases there: after their trashing of Wikileaks, I've pretty much moved to PriceMinister, which so far I find much more streamlined). Typically: a book from a European publisher, still in print and sold as new for, say, 20 euros, and offered as used by Amazon's "affiliates" in Europe for, say, 8 euros, might be offered, also second-hand, by a US seller for 62.56 US$ or some other ridiculous sum. I used to think that some people didn't quite understand the mechanisms of currency exchange, but apparently it might also be a question of algorithms on the loose.
Re: Re: I can hear them asking already...
If I do have my statistical probabilities straight, it's still quite a bit of hassle in light of the likeliness that YOU will be the one whose laptop gets searched. And, commentary to others, it's extremely doubtful that the manpower at a border crossing either has the time or the competence at their disposal to scan a laptop on the spot. Meaning that your laptop will get confiscated anyway, temporarily at least.
Re: Re: I can hear them asking already...
Doubtful. In case you haven't noticed, and at this point in time please turn your eyes towards Libya if you haven't, "they" do pretty much what they please regardless of whatever quaint statutes you believe in.
Attracting attention
Keep in mind that as useful as they may be, such installments will just as easily attract unwanted attention to your little person. In other words, from the viewpoint of the warped minds of certain people, why would you want to encrypt your stuff if you're not guilty to begin with? Then you risk getting guantanamoed simply because you refuse to be cooperative and tell "them" your password. I believe you'd be even worse off if your harddisk had been "self-destructed" and you weren't even able to provide any evidence about its contents. On my last trip to the US, I chose not to bring my laptop and put an inactive and cleaned-up SIM in my cell phone. Webmail is accessible from anywhere, and essential files can be uploaded to a server somewhere.
SABAM's money is not the artist's money
Too bad I missed on this one. Once a dear friend of mine had some of his music (Ligeti-like stuff), which had been registered with... SABAM, played on the Belgian national radio network. A whole hour of it. Shortly after he left Europe for a long, long time. Well over a decade later, as he happened to pass through Brussels, he contacted SABAM to collect his money, but was told that they didn't keep records older than 10 years. Mildly amusing.
Keeping cookies at bay in OSX
In OSX, I think that the combined use of Firefox (cookie settings in the prefs + additions NoScript! and Adblock Plus), Little Snitch and MacScan will keep you free from most of the unwanted crap. Occasionally, though, some sites just won't work properly on Firefox, or require cookies to work as expected, which makes the use of Safari necessary. I try to take that as a lesser evil, like keeping my home ad-free but having to suffer some visual pollution when I'm driving around.
Re: Morons
"I think internet providers should give customers a test to determine their level of technical competence. People who are deemed to be morons should not be allowed access to the internet. Problem(s) solved."
Sounds to me like getting rid of the nobility by chopping their heads off. Do you realize how many IPs - yes, providers - are morons themselves, either as single individuals or as organisations? If you're an IP yourself, pardon me, and if you think that wisdom is a feature of IPs, well, think again.