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  • On the post: Missouri Governor Still Expects Journalists To Be Prosecuted For Showing How His Admin Leaked Teacher Social Security Numbers

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 05:02am

    Re:

    824k dead from Covid...and the loyal faithful of Dear Leader have doubled down so far on being morons there is now the need to go beyond the Darwin Award over the malicious and persistent stupidity of these people. By now I'm just waiting for some Seventh Day Adventist offshoot to start claiming that dying of Covid is the Rapture.

  • On the post: Missouri Governor Still Expects Journalists To Be Prosecuted For Showing How His Admin Leaked Teacher Social Security Numbers

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 04:13am

    Re: Re:

    "Only fools tell the emperor he is not wearing any clothes." And children. Surely the revelation the emperor is, in fact, naked will prompt people to think about why they noted that fact and kept silent? Right? Eh, who am I kidding. It's Missouri. The bystanders will all agree the kid in question is some stripe of godless liberal and beat seven kinds of shit outta the snot-nosed brat brazen enough to confirm the evidence of their own lying eyes. Because these people are long past where they'd accept even the most bitingly obvious of facts...

  • On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 03:55am

    Re: Re: Let's resolve to call them what they are:

    The fact that Sayragul Sautbay's story has changed both in particulars and in general over the years is concerning. I mean, the ethnic cleansing performed by the PRC is a given - that's just China being China.
    The internment camps do exist.
    Forced labor is likely as we know Uighurs have been shipped around én másse to factories.
    ..and with Abu Ghraib in fresh memory there is no doubt that even if the official policy of the PRC isn't torture and rape it's almost guaranteed that some or all of the camps host this, because posts holding power over other people attracts the most horrible of monsters. But the testimony of Sayragul Sautbay itself is dubious given how much she's consistently altered it.

  • On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 03:23am

    Re: The good old days. . .

    "That was back when 'Merica was better at covering up or ignoring all the things like those you listed in the preceding paragraphs." Partially. But not all of it. Back in the '60's...that part of the US golden era the MAGA hats all want to return to, the US was, albeit flawed, still a damn sight better than it is now. Ironically that prosperity and public conscience was all based on FDR's thoroughly socialist platform which held up well until Reagan came along and gutted everything the US still had to be proud of while hollering about some imaginary welfare queen and trickle-down economics. It's gone downhill since.

  • On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 03:17am

    Re: Re:

    [typo Edit] Should have been, in the fifth row;

    "...an old affiliate of Al-Quaeda and formerly of Daesch/ISIS..."

  • On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 03:15am

    Re:

    "I think that while talking about uighurs in china, the fact that they are Muslims should be omitted." For plenty of reasons. Primarily China didn't use to have an issue with Islam with plenty of famous generals and statesmen being muslims over the centuries. This has begun to change, mainly because the Xinjiang suppression uses the official excuse that the Uighur liberation movement is an old affiliate of ISI and formerly of Daesch/ISIS (which is actually true), and therefore they are operating under the same rules of engagement as the US in their battle against "terrorists". The actual reason is that the PRC couldn't care less about the religious affiliation of the Uighur. What they care about is that Uighur culture intensely references and seeks to protect the origin of the tribe as turkish rather than Chinese. For which they have plenty of historical precedent to show that every time the Uighurs start talking about being turks the result is an attempted secession. No, the PRC will only suppress a religion which grows influential enough to bear a message undermining the state - but they'll react with disproportional aggression to any suggestion of a people within their borders claiming not to be chinese.

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "maybe other countries could try diplomacy?" What makes you think they aren't? Here's the baseline; For the PRC to completely and utterly subdue HK and make it march in obedient lockstep with Beijing is a matter of national face. If you want to tell China what they can and can not do on their own soil you will first need to go to war.

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:56am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "This was an inevitability. Raising our hackles about it now ain’t gonna do any good." And inevitable even way back when the british opium lords extorted HK from the Qing. China has a very long history and it's shock full of examples of the chinese empire, in their zenith, taking back what they lost in their nadir. The sino-british joint declaration looks very amicable but the reality is the UK was facing the choice of bowing out gracefully and pretend they believed in the assurances of the PRC...or try to project significant force forever to fight a war of attrition on a mainland China which would have made taking the place a point of national pride. Last time the UK was that dumb was the Falklands. What they could have done would have been to remind the HK residents that, in no uncertain terms, that sooner or later the PRC would reverse on the policies of "One nation two systems" and their children would live under those conditions. And the time to leave for a life in the UK, the US or Taiwan was, sort of right bloody now. Yet they didn't and the parents of the current generation were, apparently, fine with dumping their children into the current mess. "We have a lot on our plate currently with regards to keeping democracy alive in countries where it actually stands a chance." If US democracy hadn't lost every credibility under GWB and Trump I wonder...China would still do China but I wonder in how many places the fear of western intervention would have made power-mad dictators stop and think?

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:45am

    Re: Fight Fight Fight

    "This totally vague call to action by somebody just pecking a keyboard comfortably in the U.S. rings very hollow. A naive armchair general/statesman." To some extent, yes. Fight the battles you can fight. This particular one, though, was lost when the parties signed the sino-british joint declaration more than twenty years ago. What is left is to leave the dissidents left to the unkind hands of the PRC by their parents refusing to run while there was a chance, a way out and a visa.

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:37am

    Re: Re: Re: Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

    "Most people in Hong Kong don't have the option of just leaving. Those that might, would effectively be leaving hostages behind. " They had. The UK and other countries - like Taiwan - were fairly open about receiving HK immigrants back when the sino-british treaty was first signed. That's why I blame the parents. They had some 20 years of advance warning and it was guaranteed that either their children or their grandchildren would be living under the full PRC autocracy.
    The current generation? Mostly have the choice of being irrelevant martyrs of a long-dead cause or bend their necks to Emperor Xi.

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:31am

    Re: Re: Re: Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

    "By that logic shouldn't all democrats of child rearing age be leaving the USA?" If the GOP takes the house in 2022 and the landslide democrat victory in 2024 somehow ends up with Trump back in power? Depends. The difference between the 25% of the US citizenry who are A-OK with fascists and fanatical puritans in power and the 75% who are most definitely not is that the saner people outnumber the deranged ones. If push comes to shove it boils down to how many die or are suppressed before even the libs get ornery and go for their guns. For 7,4 million HK citizens to try to resist 1,4 billion, however, isn't the same equation. If the hostile part of the nation you find yourself part of can vanish you without anything you do making a difference your choice is to leave while the going's good or drop to your knees and kowtow nine times to his most August Bearsonage Emperor Xi. What happens in Hong Kong right now is comparable to a single household area in Washington D.C. declaring their secession from the United States - by firing at the passing beat cop. There is no chance it ends well for them.

  • On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:22am

    Re: Re: Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

    "I am not sure that "brave" and "courageous" are appropriate terms to describe people who remain in Hong Kong and openly protest the Chinese policies." They are, though. Their future is guaranteed to be miserable, any hope they ever had of a career, shot. At best.
    And there's no hope of the PRC switching stance here, given that to most Chinese people Life Is Good and thus a revolution isn't on the table. This isn't the Qing dynasty or the USSR where most people lived in misery that we're talking about. "Your other word, "irrelevant," is much more appropriate, and hints at some other more correctly descriptive adjectives." Like "foolish", for instance. As I said earlier, though I don't exculpate the PRC for being ultra-authoritarian asshats led by a thin-skinned Pooh Bear lookalike whose social policies are all based around the chinese concept of face - lése majéste, writ large...the most inexcusable culprits in this mess are the parents of the current generation of HK citizens who saw fit to stay in HK while it was still possible to leave, knowing their children would end up at the business end of the PRC's knife.

  • On the post: The Copyright Industry Wants Everything Filtered As It Is Uploaded; Here's Why That Will Be A Disaster

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2022 @ 02:13am

    Re: One reason why upload filters are bad

    "Considering how much this has happened with YouTube's contentID, to mandate it by legal fiat is just cruel." As has been stated so often around the copyright cult, the cruelty is, by now, the point. Because I note that as usual actual pirates remain unaffected. The victims of this particular push will primarily be the independent content creators. The intended target gets hit, in other words, because like any industry bereft the actual market need of its services will always go after the mechanism threatening their future business...

  • On the post: State Department Report Repeats Talking Points From Group Who Wants To Ban All Porn

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 06:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "I believe the virus was in ngineered, one way or another. Soy sauce soldiers? Maybe." I don't. Maybe because I've a background in bio and actually followed the hullaballoo about SARS.
    When every epidemiologist has been screaming about the hot spots the next new brand of plague will come out of for about 50 years Sars-CoV version 2.0 was about as surprising as a meteorologist telling you that after rain comes sunshine.
    We knew the next big virus had one of three plausible origins; 1) Airborne Ebola out of Africa.
    2) Some variant of Dengue to emerge from what remains of the Amazon.
    3) New strain of facultative zoonosis like SARS out of China...oh, look, we got a winner! The thing about engineering a plague is sci-fi. Bad sci-fi at that, featuring moustache-twirling incompetent villains without a plan beyond "Be Evil!".
    No government, ever will actively try to push something like that. Because plagues mutate. Once your doomsday virus is out of the lab it will be immune to your current treatment in less than a decade. Meaning the politicians responsible will be in the endangered group. And there's fsck all you can do about that. "Bats? Very unlikely, if you know tha cooking habits of Wuhan and local chefs." That's not how a zoonosis spreads. Once you've got a pathogen leaping species all it takes is one single flea or mosquito for it to spread explosively to humans. It's why when you ask a biologist what the deadliest animal on earth is, we all point to those flying little syringes giving wings to all the worst pandemics. "But who DIDNT jump for joy, and laugh, as Melinda Gates divorced him?" Aside from Gates's last little spiteful attempt to advocate the corona vaccine locked away under patent he's more or less spent as an active force of evil. His contributions to charity may be a fraction of what he ought to have paid in taxes, but I'll take it. I'm far more concerned with Murdoch who is still very much actively invested in trying to save his ailing news media industry by lobbying for legislation which actively harms many of the concepts around which the internet was built...like the idea of a functional search engine. Or perhaps most critical, currently, all the interests still vested in fossils doing their damnedest to ensure any infrastructure bill focused on green energy fails in order to guarantee the next few quarters keep showing growth. "...like Eva Braun". Not sure what Hitler's old mistress has to do with the price of these eggs? If we're digging up the dirt on old Hitler nee Shicklgruber we ought to be looking at Geli Raubal.

  • On the post: State Department Report Repeats Talking Points From Group Who Wants To Ban All Porn

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 05:48am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "...it’s the first time that you ever engaged with evidence, though your analysis of such indicates “variable” scholarship.
    But I do appreciate your engagement. "     This would be ROGS, then. And the reason I don't "engage with evidence" on assertions of implausible conspiracies is because it isn't up to me to disprove the existence of Russel's Teapot. Normal human nature is, lamentably, all that is required for millennialist beliefs to prosper in whatever framework is considered convenient at the time. It's so fundamental a mechanism of humanity you can predict its emergence from any situation sharing the proper characteristics You will never find any single faction or individual with a "plan" behind what conspiracy theorists desperately try to see as a pattern - because just like salmon migrating upstream or fish schooling there's no coordinating entity. Just a thousand grifters all very predictably moving to secure their own immediate interests. Gates isn't sitting in a murky room plotting his part of the wealthy capturing every US regulatory body - he's just employed tax and lobbying specialists experts in the currently best way to abuse the system. And every other wealthy person, from the Koch brothers to Murdoch is doing the exact same thing. Not because they collude but because thousands of skilled lobbyists and lawyers by now have the formula on how to exploit the current system of laws down pat. Haugens was one of dozens of opportunists competing to harness a base of already radical wingnuts with a bias - and became the winning contender to represent that particular loud group which had already long decided Who Was To Blame For <insert real or made-up grievance here>. "Like Trump and Rosenstein, or Stone, the advisors do in fact matter." Let's dive into that, shall we? One of those we have an untold amount of information on, for most of his life. Trump. Who has, for 40 years or more, been very clearly never listening to advisors. If anything it's been made pretty damn clear that it's the other way around. Trump doesn't hire advisors. He hires YES men. And cthulhu have mercy on any of Dear Leader's retinue if they try to "advise" him on any topic. Similarly Hitler had no "advisors" who actually advised him. He made decisions, others executed them according to his will or vanished. Same as Mussolini, Capone, Jobs, Gates...at most they'll rely on accountants or systems experts how to best carry out what they've already planned, but they'll never allow an advisor to formulate or alter policy. "About the East India and it’s Queen, I will study up— because you obviously have not fully answered the question, because the Queen at that time had advisors..." Because no further reason is required. Mercantile interests found massive opportunity for business and approached the ruling body with the promise of massive tax returns and prosperity for the realm. This cooperation between the body politic and wealthy merchants is as tired a play first described in detail in ancient roman senate records. It hasn't really changed since. Conspiracy theorists keep insisting on ever more convoluted ways to ascribe perceived patterns in human history to singular prime movers or shadowy cabals when the truth has been staring us in the face for thousands of years. That humanity is no more organized than a school of bloody fish. Homo Sapiens Sapiens will, in large populations, act as predictably as a swarm of insects. With no more forethought nor planning than a termite mound or hornet's nest. Before you get to cohesive decisions you really need to move it down to a tribal stage where a single individual makes a difference. But on the national or world stage? It becomes nothing more than the sad autonomous response of the educated and wealthy individually consolidating their power the same way, the less wealthy and educated trying to figure out why the system they live in seems maliciously bent on plundering them, and the uneducated horde or know-nots keep falling - hook, line and sinker - for some millenialist trope designed to push all the right buttons in their heads. Looking at every real conspiracy ever attempted they all have the same pattern. They get blown wide open well within a scant few years. Not just because there are always curious people trying to find out why the government hands a billion dollar tax break to some electronics company but because three people still can't keep a secret unless two of them are dead.
    After all, there's always lots of money to be made in a book promising revelations. There'll always be a Deep Throat or Ridenhour or Snowden or Drake. The more explosive the material the more likely the leak will occur sooner. Ironically the best explanation for, for instance, the East India company and the imperialist efforts of the british empire in its day can be summarized by a fictional East India representative walking down a staircase getting shot to shit while mumbling "It's just Good Business". Short-sighted greed always ending in the total collapse of the business of absolutely everyone involved. The only mystery remaining in contemporary politics is Qui Bono? Trump getting to power, for instance, isn't hard to figure out once you find his campaign war chest filled with a bank loan guaranteed by the russian state bank. Nor his actions as president in conspicuously letting large parts of the ME fall into Putin's lap. Biden in his days in congress carrying water for the banking industry against his party's policy needs only a quick look at his campaign funding to figure out. Manchin orating in injured tones of why he felt compelled to vote against the infrastructure bill isn't mysterious at all when you look at who funds his seat. And any director or chief of any alphabet soup agency of the US has similar clearly obvious motives for their actions. Beyond the tribal arena you find no ideology or plan beyond Money.

  • On the post: Confused Judge Grants Project Veritas' Prior Restraint Against The NY Times

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 04:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Other Side

    I was about to give him the credit of a healthy gerbil.
    But then I recalled Koby's comment history and had to drop the bar considerably...

  • On the post: Hey The North Face! When You Said Sending Us A Bogus Trademark Threat Was A Mistake, We Believed You; So Why Did You Do It Again?

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 03:09am

    Re: And most important

    "Why doesn't the law impose ANY penalties on those making baseless claims?" Because the DMCA in practice reverses Burden Of Proof. I.e. plenty of burden laid at the feet of the accused to prove innocence but none on the accuser to prove guilt.

  • On the post: Texas Regulators Learned Nothing From February's Carnage, Prepare To Repeat The Cycle

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 02:59am

    Re: Re:

    "If there’s an infrastructure disaster in Georgia that has a chance of repeating again, are you gonna tell the large number of voters (including the black activists that worked their asses off to get people out to vote in ways that help tilt Georgia in favor of Biden) that they can either leave or deserve to suffer?" Deserve? No. But at some point a battle will be considered lost and the time comes to redraw the battle lines to a field where you can win. Because this much is fact; If the current GOP takes over Georgia anyone a liberal will indeed suffer. If not by the weather then by the hands of some crowd drunk on success and the idea of spilling some "libtard" blood. The idea that "it can't happen here" is long dead. It is happening there. "Suffer like the black and latino and LGBTQ+ voters in Democratic strongholds in Texas?" Being a stronghold in the middle of enemy territory will mean hardships. If the only two reasonable options you can provide are "Fight a losing battle" or "Get the hell out, while you still can!"...well, one of those suggestions is well-intentioned. Being a liberal in the Deep South has always meant hardships, as I understand. But these days...I'm thinking being a liberal in the deep south is increasingly becoming like being a little too jewish in the Germany of 1930. Or like being a bosnian in serb territory in 1992.

  • On the post: Texas Regulators Learned Nothing From February's Carnage, Prepare To Repeat The Cycle

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 02:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Just being snowed in means that having a food stock on hand is a good idea." Not arguing that. Just pointing out that Cynebald thinking that Texans not planning for extended blackouts are fools is sheer victim blaming. Because in a sensible and sane jurisdiction there will be legal consequences for the power company which leaves proper maintenance by the roadside.

  • On the post: Klobuchar's Silly Letter To Facebook Raises 1st Amendment Issues And Only Gives Ammo To Misinfo Peddlers That Facebook Is A State Actor

    Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2021 @ 01:21am

    Re: Re:

    "She's not asking as a citizen; she's asking as a US senator. And, as Masnick points out, if a senator asked these same questions of a TV network, people would go nuts, for good reason." It wasn't too many decades ago that a letter from a US senator might be published by any private entity and cordially, in public, responded to with a heartfelt request that said senator could stick said letter in their pipe and smoke it. But that was in a different time, long before GWB decided to publicly start tearing down the protections hitherto held as unviolable by the US citizenry and both in that administration and the administration before the current one members of a certain party in congress began routinely questioning the "rights" of people who dissented with Dear Leader. Yes, Klobuchar isn't doing anything in this letter Senators haven't, through all of american history, done. It's just that today it's pretty tonedeaf to send such correspondence in the wake of trumpist white house officials openly questioning the legality of vocal dissent.

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