Decrypt Or Die

A UK man has been jailed for not decrypting his computer:

The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record.

His crime was a persistent refusal to give counter-terrorism police the keys to decrypt his computer files.

The 33-year-old man, originally from London, is currently held at a secure mental health unit after being sectioned while serving his sentence at Winchester Prison.

Australia has similar laws in s3LA of the Crimes Act 1914 and s201A of the Customs Act 1901. Failure to comply can result in a penalty of up to 6 months imprisonment.

The New Denialists

The reaction to the Climategate scandal from the die-hard AGW fanatics has been a thing to behold. They are in complete denial about the emails. The alleged news organisation, the New York Times, is focussing its coverage on the actions of the whistleblower, and running interference for those implicated in this scandal. Funnily enough they do not have the same attitude to other leaked information. In this, as in so many things, they are acting as partisan hacks rather than as journalists.

Worse than even the NYT is the BBC which had the new information for a month before the scandal broke, but did not publish it. They are just another discredited 'news' outlet.

Leftist intellectual George Monbiot is a strong supporter of the AGW thesis. The new information, while not causing him to change his mind on AGW, has given him pause for thought. He apologised to his readers, and acknowledged the seriousness of the now public CRU emails.

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

This ability to engage and deal with new facts as they emerge is the difference between true intellectuals and mere ideologues.

UPDATE:

Andrew Revkin at NYT (who you can see being duchessed in the Climategate emails) is showing signs of critical thinking.

Islam Hates Free Speech

The push for blasphemy laws to restrict criticism of Islam is being continued at the UN, the lead this time is being taken by Pakistan and Algeria. Islamic countries have no business depriving people of their right to free speech.

Because their are a significant number of muslims prepared to resort to violence, it is no surprise that the makers of the movie 2012 have decided to give Islam special treatment:

'I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie'.

Sadly, most western leaders are too gutless to denounce this sorry state of affairs. The Dutch are subjecting one of their own politicians to criminal prosecution for offending muslims in a 10 minute film.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Schoolies Off Their Facebook

Unbelievable!

Police try to shut down a Facebook page. They say it might cause even more stupid behaviour.

Words fail me.

Hoodwinked

Censorship imposed on oneself for the purposes of political correctness is an insidious thing. it is a form of free speech suicide.

It is quite clear that for Obama and the Obama Slobbering Media, speculation about the motivation of the Foot Hood killer is fine so long as it doesn't include speculation about any possible religious motivation, despite the fact that there are many clues pointing in that direction. Some of these are canvassed in this Time piece.

Obama said:

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know - no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice - in this world, and the next.

Sounds like wishful thinking.

The hapless president implored people not to rush to judgment. This is typical. Every time a muslim perpetrates and atrocity on the basis of their religious beliefs, a cry goes out eliciting sympathy for muslims who might be subject to a backlash. Just like when a christian shoots an abortionist the cry goes out for fear of an anti-chrisitian backlash, or not. A little more concern for identifying the cause of the atrocity and the steps necessary to prevent it happening again would be in order, even if it means considering an (in this case) obvious, but unmentionable cause.

The U.S. Army Chief of Staff, George Casey, likewise seemed primarily concerned about the safety of Muslims, not about the safety of the potential victims of the next jihad attack: "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that." Not "I'm concerned that there could be another jihadist among our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that."

Some of the excuses include stress (I assume it was some form of pre-traumatic stress disorder as he hadn't deployed yet), peeling a bumper sticker off his car, that he snapped or that he was "nuts".

In fact Major Hasan explained what the motivations of a muslim might be in a powerpoint presentation (we love death more than you love life).

The Dead Hand Of Capitalism

Now the US is the driving force behind ever more draconian intellectual property laws. It wasn't always so.

Now the push is on to extend intellectual property even further, including in relation to to the internet. It seems that counterfeiting now includes releasing material without DRM.

Intellectual property laws are granted by society for its own benefit. Unfortunately the laws have created monsters, companies who profit obscenely from exploiting their statutory monopoly. Part of the their ill-gotten wealth is directed at political lobbying, ensuring that politicians screw their constituents as they continually extend the reach of intellectual property laws.

Rudd's Orwellian Regime

There was a disturbing story in the Daily Telegraph two days ago. Steve Lewis reported that the Rudd government reserved the right to vet government funded communications between MPs and their constituents.

In a move that has incensed MPs, Commonwealth bureaucrats are exploiting new laws that allow them to ban newsletters being sent to voters.

Using Orwellian-type powers, they are putting a black mark through words such as "dreadful", "mismanagement" and "incompetence" - declaring they can no longer be used because they criticise government policy.

The new laws which came into effect on October 1 deliver a big advantage to the Government in the election year.

Senior ministers are even able to access material from Coalition MPs and the minor parties before they are mailed to voters.

The crackdown follows the Auditor-General's criticism of the $300 million parliamentary entitlements scheme.

This is beyond belief. It can’t be right, can it?

UPDATE:

I made enquiries of an ALP MHR who gave me the following reply:

The Telegraph story that you have referred to has arisen out of some changes to Parliamentary entitlements. Essentially, the issue is that a Member of Parliament is not permitted to incorporate party political comment into publications printed at taxpayers' expense.

The details of these requirements are contained in the attached Ministerial Circular and Q & A attachment.

The circular was released by the Special Minister of State following his press release:

http://www.smos.gov.au/media/2009/mr_352009.html

This press release was issued in response to the findings of the ANAO in the attached report.

http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2009-10_ANAO_Audit_Report_3_.pdf

It is worth noting that an MP only has to comply with these requirements when using taxpayer funded entitlements.

I'll think of that every time I pass one of those school signs that must be kept up until after the next election.

This sounds like doublespeak to me. If this is the approach to be taken, politicians need to be given great latitude as to what they might say. They should certainly be allowed to criticise government policy in the most trenchant terms. Quoting Hansard clearly should be exempt from this regulation.