Freedoms – Postcards

“Websites are not similar to telephones”

September 8, 2022 No Comments

Excellently put here by Ryan Broderick: Websites are not similar to telephones. They are not even similar to books or magazines. They are street corners, they are billboards, they are parks, they are shopping malls, they are spaces where people congregate. Just because you cannot see the (hopefully) tens of thousands of other people reading […]

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Freedoms Human Rights

Quote of the Day

May 5, 2021 No Comments

“Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” Edward snowden

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Equality Freedoms Fuck the patriarchy Human Rights Middle East

Desegregation in Iran (just a bit)

July 5, 2018 No Comments

For the first time since 1979, women in Iran are allowed to attend a men’s game in a stadium with a mixed crowd. For nearly 40 years, half of Iran’s population was not allowed to go to a stadium to watch soccer, the country’s single most popular sport. The defacto ban, instilled by religious clerics […]

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Freedoms Government Trumperica

Yonatan Zunger – What things going wrong can look like

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 No Comments

In Trumpistan, Yonatan Zunger had a guess at how things might play out (https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/what-things-going-wrong-can-look-like-400f84a0cc3a#.yyni3tha1): On a recent post I made about how President Trump marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, one of my readers asked a good, but hard, question: Why did this regime single out some particular groups (e.g., Muslims, Latinos, Black, and Trans people) as […]

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Freedoms Government Politics Society

Autocracy Or Kleptocracy – Trump’s America

February 6, 2017 No Comments

David Frum expounds on the possible outcomes of Trump’s Presidency in the Atlantic. Fascinating and though-provoking, it’s a long but worhtwhile read. He covers something I’ve noted before: In an 1888 lecture, James Russell Lowell, a founder of this magazine, challenged the happy assumption that the Constitution was a “machine that would go of itself.” […]

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Bits & Bobs Freedoms Mood

“There is no justice, there’s just us”

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 No Comments

Rules, justice, the system, none of this works by itself. Terry Pratchett once wrote “There is no justice, there’s just us”. It’s true. People make justice, it doesn’t exist on it’s own. Without people standing up for the system, it collapses. It doesn’t work on it’s own. Laws, norms of government, all can be bypassed, […]

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Equality Freedoms Society

Harry’s Last Stand: On removing platforms

January 30, 2017 No Comments

BBC putting #Farage on TV b/c you think it adds balance to your news coverage is like giving a voice to wife beaters over victims #MuslimBan — Harry Leslie Smith (@Harryslaststand) January 29, 2017

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Freedoms Law

Journalists charged after covering Trump inauguration unrest

January 25, 2017 No Comments

This certainly seems chilling, “Four more journalists get felony charges after covering inauguration unrest | Media | The Guardian”. While I don’t doubt that policing a riot situation is difficult, this does look like simple bulk arresting based on location. Which sends a chilling message to anyone covering future events – don’t, or you too […]

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Big Brother Freedoms Law Secret State

Big Data requires Big Laws

April 1, 2016 No Comments

There’s no such thing as being ‘offline’ anymore. It’s almost impossible, I’d say, to live any sort of normal life without having your data on some machine somewhere. And if you engage in any way with other people, then you use at least email, and probably some sort of social network. There’s no escape now […]

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Big Brother Freedoms Privacy Secret State UK

Police speak to boy, 10, due to spelling error

January 31, 2016January 31, 2016 No Comments

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/20/i-live-in-a-terrorist-house-police-speak-to-muslim-boy-10-over-spelling-error As a result, the child was interviewed on 7 December by police and the authorities examined a laptop found at his family home. His family has since demanded the school and police apologise, according to the BBC. A cousin of the boy, who has not been named to protect his identity, said his relatives initially […]

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Who?

Murf

“Websites are not similar to telephones”

Quote of the Day

Desegregation in Iran (just a bit)

Yonatan Zunger – What things going wrong can look like

Autocracy Or Kleptocracy – Trump’s America

“There is no justice, there’s just us”

Harry’s Last Stand: On removing platforms

Journalists charged after covering Trump inauguration unrest

Big Data requires Big Laws

Police speak to boy, 10, due to spelling error

Category: Freedoms