Minimum Govt Protection of Civil Rights

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If there is one thing that the events of the last few years has proven, it is that our government is hopelessly either incompetent or corrupt when it comes to protecting our citizens from being oppressed by the government, or republican nuts, or tech bro stupidity.  What can we do to protect ourselves against the kind of overreach we have seen time and time again?  Not much actually, the government of the US was deliberately set up to be immune to the beliefs of the citizens.  But still it does not hurt to ask, well except that if you ask you will be put on various lists and have your life destroyed.  

 

But why not?  Unless you are wealthy, your life has been destroyed anyway.

 

Here is a short list of things we could demand and of course not receive.

1. In every movie, we always see that the US govt has complete access to all our private records, transactions, credit cards, driver licenses, etc.  We can see that they do not have such access and any violation of this law requires that the law enforcement officials be indicted and tried for a crime that requires jail time.

 

2. Time and time again, some internal security force, whether DHS or FBI or other, deliberately underestimates the threat of white, racist organizations but inflates the threat of innocent non-organizations such as Antifa.  When this becomes public knowledge, as it has in the case of the Portland demonstrations of a few years ago, the agents and management involved must be indicted and tried, and if found guilty, have minimum jail time.

 

3. The US can prohibit facial recognition systems used in this country and against American citizens.  Those organizations that violate that rule and their management and agents must be indicted, and if found guilty, be sentenced to some minimum jail time.

 

4. The Republicans have perverted the law by filing baseless lawsuits over and over again.  Fix this.

 

5. Any law enforcement official of the federal, state or local government who violates these laws must be prohibited from serving in any similar capacity in the government or in private industry.

 

6. Any tech company that violates the rights of its users or its employees should be nationalized without compensation and those who committed the crimes, if found guilty, serve jail time.  

 

7. The DOJ must be required to indict members of government who are obviously criminals such as Trump and his minions.  Failure to do so should result in dismissal and jail time.

 

This is minimum.  More will be added later.  Not all that interested in why you think morons like Trump should be exempt.

 

Yay! Global Wahrman is a "Hate Site" !

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The swine-like arbiters of all that is good and right, Boingo, an ISP for chrissake, has determined that this blog is a "hate site" and that their customers must be protected from me.  A greater compliment I can not imagine.  

 

I tried telling them that I am in reality a "contempt site" but it went over their heads.

 

Yes, global wahrman must be a "hate site" as I hate injustice and hypocrisy and, horrors, I am willing to write about it.

 

Happy Hanukkah

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Jill Fraser sent me these pictures of important new types of Hanukkah candle holders.  I think they speak for themselves.

Second Boingo Letter

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For some reason unknown, Blogger wont let me post the second letter to Boingo without turning my blog blue.  I am blue but I dont want my blog to be blue.

 

So what I have done is to make three jpegs from the letter and see if I can post that.  I thought it was a nice letter and I am being a nice guy.  You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and besides, what else am I going to do?  Sue them?  Write my congressman?  

I am starting to like the idea that I am considered a hate site.  Maybe my blog is actually better than I thought. But I think this is just the result of a dumb program at Boingo filtering at random and it found some words it disapproved of.  Thats my guess.

 

 

News of the Attempted Coup in Germany

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The attempt to restore the monarchy in Deutschland lead me to wonder if (1) Reichsburger could become a new fast food, (2) whether the US should attempt to rejoin the British Commonwealth and (3) failing that perhaps we could ask a Hapsburg or two to come over and run us since clearly we can not govern ourselves.

 

Kathleen Quaife Memorial Service December 5, 2022

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There was a memorial service for Kathleen Quaife (-Hodge) on December 5, 2022 at noon.  Stereotypically, I got a late start and other hilarity ensued combined with everyone leaving immediately afterwards.  But the upside is that an insider tipped me off to the correct location and I arrived to have several hours to myself in the fabulous exhibit dedicated to Kathleen's work as an artist.  This exhibit was created by her co-workers at the California State University Channel Islands where she had taught for several years.

 

Kathleen was one of my favorite people from my time in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s and I was happy to reconnect with her for a day two years ago at the opening of a ceramics studio here in Santa Barbara.  

 

Kathleen was like having a glowing ball of positive energy around. Again, why are the best people taken from us while the annoying and amoral swine continue to live among us?  Where is the justice in that?

The physical plant of CSUCI is astonishing and was the location of a notable hospital far, far away from anything else five miles outside Camarillo.  The buildings are classic and the place is huge.

The "Left" Used to Love Elon Musk

A Republican friend pointed out to me that "the left" used to idolize Elon Musk.  First this is more or less totally true.  Second I thought it was obviously stupid and I think it is stupid now.  Third, what he calls "the left" is objectively more like the moderate center.  There is very little "left" in this country.  There is some but they are tiny and have almost zero credibility.

Maybe I Understand What is Going on With Boingo and their "hate site" Designation

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In the process of sending my little letter to Boingo to try and unblock this blog, I may have (almost accidentally) come across what they are thinking here.  In the process of contacting customer service, the phone system asked if I was calling about service at a government facility.  Perhaps it is their policy not to provide access to websites that discuss politics, particularly websites that are very negative about the political situation, which I certainly am.  I would not say that is a hate site, however.  So we will see.  Maybe they can just call me a "political site" and perhaps convince me that they do this to everyone who is political, and then it might be understandable and maybe even reasonable.  However, if they do this to me and not to, for example, the Wall Street Journal, that would not be reasonable.

Or maybe what is going on is that they can't handle the truth and dont want to be accused of allowing free speech to happen if it does not reinforce the illusion that we live in a functional democracy with a justice system and equal opportunity for everyone.  Maybe their clients require them to censor reality.  Its perfectly possible and completely understandable.  Maybe the "hate" is all on their side, they hate certain blogs because they say things that they dont want to hear.

Oh Boingo! Please Free Me!

This is a letter that I wrote to Boingo customer service.  Boingo is apparently an ISP for WIFI airports and military bases.

Dear Boingo,

Many months ago, when a friend of mine was traveling through Phoenix airport, she reported that something called “Boingo” was blocking my blog and calling it a “hate site”. I looked up “Boingo” and found out who you were and after a few nice conversations with customer support, I am writing this letter.

Whatever my blog may be, it certainly isnt a “hate site” as that is generally defined. It is a site about several different things including the history of LA and visual effects, the role of the artist in the motion picture industry, contemporary America and its politics, a site for writing practice and other things. I think it would be fair to say that I have strong opinions and that I am very unhappy about the state of contemporary politics in America but that could be said about a majority of Americans these days.

I am also very sarcastic and cynical about many things, some would say bitter, and I have noticed that Americans in particular find sarcasm baffling and disagreeable. Also many AI programs seem to have a problem with sarcasm, or at least Facebook does. For that reason I stopped using Facebook to discuss many issues because I did not want to deal with their pathetic and incompetent filtering system.

I am sure there are many ways that we can solve this misunderstanding and release my site from its bondage. First, for all I know, you have already unblocked my site and we are done. That would be wonderful. If not, then perhaps you have a document you can send me that describes your policy, what defines a “hate site” and with this statement in hand we can determine if (a) the policy is itself reasonable and (b) whether my site is guilty of it.

In either case, I look forward to learning what the procedure is to unblock the site. Maybe all we need is a slight redefinition of terms. Maybe instead of calling it a hate site, you can put up a notice that warns that my sight espouses “strong opinions” and to “click here to enter site”. That would be fine with me.  But "hate site" is just not correct and is in fact quite demeaning.

I hope this will be quickly resolved.

Sincerely

 

 

Andor and the Explanation Triumphant

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As we have discussed, it is "the explanation" that is the better part of filmmaking.  Forget and leave behind the pathetic necessity to "show something" to "demonstrate something on the screen".  Some pointless visual effects.  Some ridiculous action sequence.  No, the most important part of the film, the play, the whatever, is when a character explains to another character what is going on, what they believe, what they are thinking, what they have been hiding.

I dont know where the series Andor is going and whether it can maintain its momentum to transcend, to rise above the pathetic Star Wars mythology with its emphasis on giant cosmic eggs / death stars and its Joseph Campbell-esque "hero's journey" so simple, so overused. 

No, what we need is two adults, desperate and alone, who reveal their plans, their hopes, their dreams, their failures, their secrets.  To reveal, at least in part, what is going on.  

 

Forget your battles between giant robots, that is for children.  

Episode 10 of Andor has a classic in the explanation genre.  It even has a little craft from the intelligence world.  It seems the rebellion has planted an agent in the empire security service.  This agent requests a meeting with his handler to warn him and to resign.  And the handler, in classic intelligence fashion, tells his agent that he can not resign, that he is trapped.  And then the handler explains his sacrifice, his motivations, his fears as a way of reminding the agent that he is not alone in regretting, in part, the price he has paid.

They did a really good job.