US Elections, IT Updates, other gatherings..

[tcpip]

The re-election of Obama was in accord to my own preferences and in recognition of his actions. Personally pleased that I guessed the electoral college vote exactly right several weeks prior, although I had already become a little obsessive on reading the polls. Have since become very interested in county-by-county results. As noted some months ago, the Republicans are facing a demographic challenge, which is not helped by the fact they're engaging with the problem with a death-wish, which has led to all sorts of crazy tears of impotent rage (again); notably from Donald Trump.

Work continues at project Trifid as we discover the joys of xCAT (imajica_lj has his own sense of rage as well). Hopefully next week we'll get the applications installled with greater ease. Wednesday night was a smaller than usual LUV meeting, albeit with good discussion on whether the diversity within Linux is a good thing for its market share. Matthew Garrett raises the issue of rape apology in the Linux community, which I'll respond to in depth in the near future. The Australian government has also announced that it is dropping plans for an Internet filter.

Thursday night was another excellent Call of Cthulhu session, playing out the Trieste chapter of Horror on the Orient Express (two characters indefinitely insane, two unconscious - a good result). Tonight attended the weekly multicultural gathering organised by Keith P.; some thirty (mostly) students crammed into his flat to discuss collecting. This Sunday will attend Katherine P's attempt at Ross House to establish a new Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Melbourne (it's called leadership by example). Next Tuesday night will give a presentation to the Melbourne Atheist Society on The Importance of A Secular Political System.

Comments

[serehfa]

I tried to find the "like" button. I've been assimilated!

[lifedistilled.livejournal.com]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/hey-rush-limbaugh-starting-an-abortion-industry-wont-win-you-female-voters-20121108

A solid, brutal and amusing look at why the Republican leadership and punditry hasn't caught on to what went wrong.

Matt Taibbi is a writer I think you'll appreciate, by the way, and there's plenty of archive to dig through if you find yourself with a lot of time.

As an aside, I recommend his book Griftopia if it's available where you are. I sold more than four dozen copies during the Occupy protests and lectured to large working groups during the protests using information gleaned from the book. I strongly recommend it. Once again, informed and pull-no-punches hilarious.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

... and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned moochers.

Aww snap!

That's an excellent short piece, really quite enjoyed it. The attitude that Limbaugh is showing - that youth just want to have free education and pot, the Latin Americans simply want to be let in without restriction, that women want casual abortions - does have that eerie "here's a gift, so go vote for me" sound.

Matters like marijuana decriminalisation, availability of safe contraception, and the availability of permanent residency exist is because the groups that the Republicans have managed to alienate the very principle that they so readily espouse but never implement - it's a simple case of freedom.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Wow. After 5 years of wasting large amounts of time and money and looking like a total moron, they finally gives up on censoring the net. Conroy and Gillard should resign. Nobody that clueless should be running a milk bar, much less the country.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

If you put yourself in a the right mind-set there are arguments for Internet censorship, as there is for prior publication censorship of any sort. Indeed, the legalistic argument would say that that effort should be made to apply the same sort of laws on online publications as exist on offline publications. I am not convinced of them, but I acknowledge that they exist - and this part is particularly important - there is bipartisan (indeed global) efforts to regulate Internet content.

For politicians, they also have to be especially sensitive to the presence of well-funded lobby groups who advocate in favour of such actions, especially when (a) the supporters of a more open Internet are far less organised and have a lower presence in marginal seats and (b) it fits the politicians personal preferences anyway.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I believe that you're being very generous, given that I find the mindset required to be utterly abhorent. Many of the restrictions on offline publications, just like the restrictions on video games in recent times, homosexuality in the past, etc, are basically very Victorian (I mean the era, though sometimes the state too) attempts to outlaw anything that the ruling class don't happen to agree with, understand or participate in. I remember there was some talk of banning Dungeons and Dragons when it came out too. The presence of well-funded lobby groups which wish to inflict their own beliefs upon others is indeed a problem. Ideally, we should have a bill of rights and those who wish to infringe upon our freedoms should suffer legal sanctions against them. The "personal preference" that it fits into is unbridled authoritarianism, which is something I'd like to see the end of.

(In addition, even if a law is a good idea, I don't believe it should be brought in when unenforceable or trivially circumvented. It's in another category of poor government: Pretending to be doing something when you're really not.)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, there are those with the mind-set you're talking about, but I wasn't referring to the crazy fundamentalists. I was simply referring to those who (a) believe that there should be prior censorship of content (e.g., cognitive-based restrictions) and (b) who think that all forms of publication should be treated equally.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

This "backdown" is a clever misdirection which seems to have fooled just about everyone. Actually, they did indeed implement mandatory filtering at the ISP level; it's happening right now. They just chose a different filter list.