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ITEM: Special project I'm doing for Firedoglake. Click this link to find more places its embedded. The Occupationalist
http://storify.com/adbusters

Late nite May 14

Items: Found on Facebook.

ITEM: I have updated my Chipin page. You can actually create a third party if you have money. You need at least a quarter of a million to contest a US House seat or city with the same amount of people. You need at least 2 million dollars to contest a US Senate seat. If 300000 people gave 10 dollars a month that would be enough. How do you find 300000 angry people? I have tried but so far I have failed. I must keep trying.

Late nite May 7

ITEM: Things I'm looking at it concerning CISPA, British efforts to stop the Pirate Bay and other related issues.

First this quote from Greenwald which gets the SOPA victory right. It was public outcry combined with the power of the software kings.

This, of course, is how virtually all American laws are written: by having government officials meet in secret with affected industries to ensure that their interests (as opposed to the interests of ordinary citizens) are protected. This is what the recent (and probably temporary) defeat of SOPA revealed: although it was genuinely encouraging to see so many people from all different realms voice objections to the government’s attempted seizure of Internet-control powers, it was really the fact that the Interent industry opposed the law that doomed it. Citizen opposition, by itself, would never have been sufficient to overcome the pro-SOPA lobbying of the entertainment industry; it took a different powerful industry to stop it. For that reason, remaining remnants of Internet privacy depend upon the willingness of the tech industry to defend them, and while some companies have been commendable in those efforts, it’s far from clear that industry opposition to increased surveillance powers has anything to do with privacy concerns:

Related: Britain asks the question why don't American ISPs just block the Pirate Bay? Because it doesn't work.

Last week the UK High Court ruled that several of the country’s leading ISPs must block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. The decision is designed to limit traffic to the world’s leading BitTorrent site but in the short-term it had the opposite effect. Yesterday, The Pirate Bay had 12 million more visitors than it has ever had, providing a golden opportunity to educate users on how to circumvent blocks. “We should write a thank you letter to the BPI,” a site insider told TorrentFreak.

More related: Gizmodo tells you how to pirate software without getting caught. That's the actual headline. There's some speculation that even writing a story like this in the future would be against the law. But the writer makes an interesting argument: You're just trying to recover software that you already own. Interesting.

May 1

ITEM: May Day Rally to be held today.

April 29

ITEM: Been busy. Working a job and posting meaningful updates not always easy. More stuff coming this week. Here are some toons.

and:

I would still vote for Obama over Mitt Romney because of the courts. But for a lot of people that won't be enough. I suppose it would be nice if the Justice or the Green Party ran decent viable campaigns. Note for the Justice or the Green Party: You need 125 million to actually contest a presidential campaign. You will probably be outspent 10 to 1 by the major parties. I don't think that Roseanne Barr would be a good choice for the Green Party. However, I wish Roseanne would raise 35 million for 5 viable senate runs and 25 viable house runs. Just thinking out loud here...

What should have been published April 22

ITEM: Something from the late Howard Zinn. And here's some election endorsements from the Leftist troublemakers at Moveon. I agree with all of these.

U.S. Senator

Progressives recommend: Bob Casey Jr.

Member of Congress
(14th District)

Progressives recommend: Mike Doyle

Attorney General

Progressives recommend: Patrick Murphy

State Representative
(24th District)

Progressives recommend: Edward Gainey

Related: Why Patrick Murphy over the lady in this era of the GOP war on women? Because Patrick Murphy campaigned to the left of the lady prosecutor on the choice issue. Plus, as a democrat, he managed to never give any money to Tom Corbett. As usual, I'll be completely blindsided by bond issues and judge races and vote by prettier last names...

April 15

ITEM: One of the pics that was supposed to be in that Hyperink book I was contracted to write. It's under a creative commons license. I was going to save up for the book but there have been some pressing concerns. One of the things I found out when I was researching the SOPA and PIPA legislation, aside from how bad that legislation was, is that this was just one attempt by the Hollywood/Chris Dodd lobby to essentially change how the Internet functions. They actually have several plays in motion that could make the Internet look more like your cable, which you're probably very dissatisfied with. It's not just SOPA/PIPA.

First, it looks like they're trying to fold parts of SOPA/PIPA into something called CISPA. No one's sure how much. But this sounds bad...Techdirt has more.

Two, they could accomplish much of what SOPA/PIPA wanted to do through completely transparency free international treaties like ACTA or TPP. When I was researching this, and this is an issue I've watched since the mid 90s since the introduction of NAFTA (You're not even allowed to watch how the deliberations work in treaties like NAFTA or the WTO...closed courts. Almost a recipe for corruption. I think that's the point...), the best line I read that described this was "policy laundering".

Three, there are the lawsuits. You should be rooting for Youtube in Youtube vs. Viacom. Then there's this surreal case that would turn links and embedding into infringement. What is the meaningful Internet except linking and embedding...?

What Should Have Been Published April 8

ITEM: Some Easter Sunday Jesus and Mo. And below a toon for English Majors.

ITEM: And there are always reviews of other people's comics.

OR:

Irredeemable 35 or Doc Doom inhabits Sue’s body and makes out with Reed Richards.

Or Lex Luther inhabits the body of Lois Lane and makes out with Clark Kent.

Or the Green Goblin takes over the body of Mary Jane Watson and sleeps with Peter Parker.

Or Catwoman has sex with Batman. Wait, that last one is normal but you get the sick picture.

This is exactly what happens in the very disturbing oh gawd I can’t turn my eyes away issue 35 of Irredeemable. I must say this is one of the most disturbing issues I’ve read in a series which features all kinds of disturbing scenes of, well, worldwide destruction that causes millions of people to die. On the other hand, this issue features our body shifting Super Villain Modeus quenching out entire solar systems in order to, uh, “subdue” everyone’s least favorite mass murdering Plutonian. Here in the latest issue Modeus has taken over the body of the one woman who he describes as loving the “Plutonian” unconditionally. Keep in mind that Modeus has a bit of a sexual thing for the Plutonian. We found this out when we saw the number of sex dolls that Modeus had created in the Plutonian’s image some issues ago.

Read the whole disruptive gender bending thing.

April 2

A Short Happy Birthday to Me (Turning 30 plus or minus 20 years) Around the Internets

ITEM: I just really hate the republican party. Not only not progressive which would be okay, but violently regressive and seemingly pro pre-enlightenment.

ITEM: Related to the item above and Rick Santorum specifically: There's an interesting piece in Steel City Skeptics that extols the unfriendly atheist approach as outlined by Sir Richard Dawkins. Here's a bit:

Now consider what this clown’s platform seems to be – a platform of extreme religiosity and unrestricted comingling of church and state, a platform of homophobia and racial bigotry, of anti-intellectualism and willful ignorance, and misogyny – in short against virtually everything that any rationalist or humanist believes in and stands for. And these people admire and salute these positions.

So I ask you, how are you going to reason with these people? They are completely irrational and delusional and are not in the slightest amenable to reason. So why waste our breath? We sure as hell don’t need to worry about offending them – our very existence offends them and they are completely unwilling to actually listen to anything that we have to say since it conflicts with their hatreds and delusions. So why bother trying to accommodate them? It’s certainly not going to get us anywhere. So let’s just let ‘em have it with both barrels – treat their idiotic beliefs with the contempt and derision and ridicule that they so richly deserve. At every opportunity and chance that we get.

I understand this position but I don't agree with it. I think you have to replace religion with something better that provides some or all of those things, meaningful things mind you (from jobs to day care to spiritual comfort..). We need a secular movement that practices a kind of intelligent proactive Erich Fromm kind of love. That doesn't mean hand holding but more like what noted Atheist Bill Gates did in Africa by saving millions of African lives by providing needed vaccines. This also countered the Catholic Church's horrible anti condom policies. I mean, if you wanted, for example, to really wean African Americans away from the church, you would have to provide jobs and community. You won't go far just by saying that your religious thinking is shoddy and superstitious. Religious institutions provide things that people need. We have to offer things to. More on this later when I have time.

ITEM: Let's hope this Facebook user wins. Not unlike the boss asking me for my home keys...

ITEM: "And then...I shall rule the World!"

Late nite March 27

ITEM: Learn about elementary criminal law from a criminal attorney, with pictures. I think he's influenced by Eisner but that's just a guess based on a panel where he mentions "homage" and a guy who looks like Eisner appears in the panel.

Funny. Yet true. I hope Democrats notice that we're losing on all the important issues. Doesn't mean that I want Mitt or Rick as my next president but I could see why people would just stay home. Not inspiring me here, Barry. And something funny. Ward Sutton's rejected "Family Circus" cartoons.

Official Firebagger Position: Free riders aren't the problem, unaffordable health insurance is the problem.

ITEM: I watched some of the Supreme Court hearing today and it didn't seem to go too well for the government. Here's the thing:I hate the individual mandate. The best possible outcome would be to uphold the rest of the bill and strip out the individual mandate. It wouldn't work anyway because there's no cost containment. This is why some of us are so embittered over the loss of the public option, as well as the fact that the president dealt that out from the start. You would just be forcing people to buy stuff they couldn't afford. This also becomes dicier as its becoming clear that they're going to try to criminalize debt.

Just for the record: the problem with health care isn't the "free rider" problem. Its that "insurance is too expensive for working people to buy" problem. People can barely afford Cobra when its offered. If you expanded Medicare for all or added another seven percent in taxes for a kind of single payer, and it was good French style coverage, people would take that in a heartbeat. It's just that it wasn't offered and the health insurance industry fought against such coverage. They won by the way. The American public lost. The individual mandate is a boondoggle for the insurance industry, an evil industry that routinely kills people by denying them the coverage they need.

So, good riddance individual mandate. No love lost here.

March 26

ITEM: Found on Facebook. Why do the ladies vote Republican? There are signs that there will be less of that in light of this War against common sense contraception...

ITEM: This was the second book that I was supposed to write for Hyperink. The book Hyperink ended up publishing is not a very good book and in fact is far inferior to the book that I turned into them. That's what I get for trying to explain that fair use isn't plagiarism. But I do intend to self publish that book that I wrote, written by a guy who knew what the fuck he was talking about. Oh, I spent my 2.99 on the book and you know what? There is a reader response section. Well, I'm a 12 year member in good standing over there at Amazon...I think I'll make a comment or two...Do you have any idea how I wished I had this tool of the Internet when I was beginning my career? You have no idea...(On the other hand, I wouldn't have appreciated this power! This would have been something that I would take for granted as things I could do. You have to remember those days to value the present...)

Oh look. My Amazon review was approved! And here it is:

Poorly researched "objective" book written for dumb laymen, not "hackers"., March 26, 2012

By Philip Shropshire

This review is from: Hacker's Guide To SOPA and PIPA (Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act) (Kindle Edition)

Well, first, the book that I delivered to you was a much better, much more intelligent, much better researched book than the "book", and I use that term loosely, that you actually decided to go with. Its a very good study of why the corporate mentality doesn't produce writing of interest, intelligence or vitality.

Two, the book is written for four year olds, not hackers. For example, there are workarounds to SOPA and PIPA, everything from browser encryption protocols to the old TOR network to virtual private networks. None of this is even hinted at in this poor excuse of an effort. It's not even stylishly written. Joshua should stick to code.

Three, there are a total of about seven links in this "book". (What's the nonfiction term for "short story"?)and there is almost nothing verified about any of its declaratory statements. For example, when he talks about how "The Acts were primarily aimed at preventing U.S. Internet users from accessing illegal content", well, everybody who's anybody on the Internet disagrees with you Joshua. What's actually really really amazing is that Marc Andreessen, the guy who gave Kevin Gao, the founder of Hyperink, over 1 million in funding(!), also hates the bill! Look up "An Open Letter to Washington" on the Google...I believe Marc's exact words were that these bills would "give the US Government the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran..." Perhaps Marc should have a good talking to with Kevin about the kinds of harmful laws that can destroy everyone's business model, including Hyperink's!

Four, it totally misses the point that the war continues with both the ACTA and TPP treaties. Inexcusable. These treaties would accomplish what SOPA and PIPA failed to do. Again, something that real hackers would want to know and that real writers would write about. Not info found in this 2000 word essay.

Five, it's "gizmodo" not "gizomodo". What do you pay your editors for anyway?

Bottom line: not worth nine cents let alone $2.99. You would be better off looking at Wikipedia entries. Pathetic. And you know what? I don't even blame Joshua. I blame his editors and his publisher. You get what you pay for. There's a difference between "objective" and "advocacy" journalists. Here you needed an advocate for your own damn business model.

Sincerely,

Philip Shropshire

March 22

ITEM: Really good interview with that Mark guy from Boing Boing. I wonder if the "unschooling" reference has anything to do with the Ivan Illich "deschooling" term? Probably not..nice look at the future of tech.

ITEM: I am, like most African Americans, deeply pissed off over the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida. A black kid who I resembled at 17 and who resembled the current president and also the current attorney general. There isn't much I can do except fume however I wish the two slightly more powerful African Americans that I mentioned would make an angry comment or two. I guess Zimmerman has to be a dim witted terrorist you're entrapping or a medical marijuana facility in order to get the attention of those guys...no I'm not impressed by just the grand jury. I remember the everything is fine federal verdict on the Jordan Miles beatdown, not to mention not intervening in that Georgia death penalty case, or betraying me on Keystone and the public option...Washington Generals party indeed.

March 20

ITEM: Yet another comic book review. Here's a snippet:

I really had no idea what to expect from this property when I picked it up. What I found was one of the most intense SFnal comics that I had read in a while. In fact, the weirdness is so sublime and relentless that I do believe this is the first comic that I can describe as “Delaneyesque”, mainly for its disturbing portrayal of the alien sex drive.

How disturbing? More snippet:

Four: But the highlight for me would have to be the man on alien sex. And I’m not talking about the hot kind like with say certain Borg queens or blond cylons. Nope. Really alien.

Read the whole thing as they say.

March 19

Just a check. Been having some upload problems lately. More tonight when I have time...

ITEM: You can find all the Moebius pieces and a few more that were below over at Mirror Universe where the extra pixels won't slow down the page. Related: Here is a portrait of great comics artists done a while back. It features Connie McNamara's favorite writer (that's a joke I'll explain later if I ever complete the final chapters about The Face of Terror..) Harlan Ellison introducing Moebius and probably over exaggerating his French pronunciations.

March 14

ITEM: More Moebius.

A complete obit roundup by The Comics Reporter guy.

THINGS I'M READING IN ORDER TO WRITE ABOUT THINGS AROUND THE INTERNETS

Plans to raid Pirate Bay possibly futile. We shall see.

Student loan debt forgiveness act.

New Tech Site.

Long depressing screed about how hard it is to do third party runs in Pennsylvania.

What should have been published March 10

ITEM: Rest in peace Moebius, arguably the most gifted artist to ever do comics.

As per usual The Comics Reporter has the best roundup, with a nicely written obit and a video roundup of all things.

ITEM: I just think that black people who support the Republicans are kind of idiots. I'm beginning to think the same of women who vote Republican.

March 6

ITEM: Probably not the best way to convert black religious people to the joys of faithlessness (Does keep your Sunday mornings relatively free...) but it is an effort. Actually, if you read the article, which I eventually did, they're not trying to. They're looking for people who have doubts about the whole communion good times after death stuff. I suppose African American humanists are more subtle small steps kind of billboard people. Some reaction from Harrisburg's right wing rag, a very conservative paper that probably represents Pennsyltucky very well.

Related: Facebook conversation featuring religious people talking about the billboard. Verdict: Not popular with the saved.

March 5th

ITEM: My new review of "Fatale 1" is up.

Here's a bit:

“Fatale” looks to be an intriguing combination of “LA Confidential” and “Angel Heart”.

Or if you haven’t seen those movies a combination of California Noir and California Noir combined with Real Magick. Its a little hard to describe but it starts out in 2011 with the funeral of a writer named “Dominic H. (Hank?) Raines”, a man in his 70s who’s described as an atheist who hates all religions. (Just as an aside: just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean you hate religion. It just means that you don’t believe in them although this character would seem to have a different motivation: religions and their crazy vindictive gods are real and destructive but back on point…) His funeral is attended by his godson who now has control of the late writer’s estate, whose work he derides as being commercial yet hackish junk. Sounds a little like cheap pulpster Mickey Spillane, or the poor man’s Raymond Chandler.

Read the rest here.

ITEM: Ed Gainey is running against dinosaur Joe Preston for the 24th legislative district. I know this because he knocked on my somewhat lower class Wilkinsburg door this weekend. He made a very compelling case against Joe for voting for the "turn off poor people's heat in the winter" bill and being unresponsive on the Marcellus Shale issue. I was surprised that Joe didn't get the endorsement this year and that Ed had won it. If I remember Ed from the familiar Dem faces I've seen he's worked downtown in some kind of political capacity for the last seven or eight years. Definitely a machine guy but that doesn't mean he couldn't be better than Joe. I guess he's got my vote since he made the effort, especially since my steps are kinda shaky and he made the trip anyway. I also thought he was respectful yet critical of Joe's leadership. I suppose Mr. Preston could change my mind if he makes it to my door. Doubtful.

For the record, I'm completely angered by the ineffectiveness and corruption of the state's Democratic Party leaders. The goal of the Democratic Party in 2010 had to be win something: the state house, the state senate or the governor's seat and they went 0 for 3. We lost the redistricting war which means we may have lost the state for the next 10 years to the openly and successfully fascist Rush Limbaugh Republican Party. I could lose bus service and lots of other essential things over the next decade or so. O Canada...Or Norway. I might leave if I could ever afford it...

Feb. 29

ITEM: More shots around Pittsburgh or where I do most of my walking. This is another shot of East Liberty. I played with the colors (the city isn't hallucinogenic) and I did some weird curvature thing to the center of the photo.

ITEM: The real news of the day is the Wikileaks/Anonymous Stratfor leaks. This is a potent combination or as Stratfor itself notes (Thanks to the hack. Funny.) page hacking is lame but information theft, especially things powerful people don't want you to know, now that's valuable. The Young Turks has the best wrap up. More stuff from Firedoglake's prolific and hardworking Dissenter columnist. I just can't work that hard any more. Just for fun look at everything Kevin wrote today. Or David Dayen.

Jan. 27

ITEM: I will not be writing about She Who Cannot Be Named today. Or as I call her: The Face of Terror.

Aug. 28

ITEM: I posted this earlier but it disappeared. But now its back again. My cousin Leonce's new novel looks to be very very commercial. Still sounds like "Deadwood meets Avatar", with Native Americans and African Americans fighting The Man...The title appears to be: "I Dreamt of Heaven--The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang."

Late night March 31st

(Slightly rewritten on the 3rd. Trying to make it better.)

ITEM: My black republican cousin--who shall go nameless because I don't want to out the guy who thought McCain/Palin was better than Obama, disappointing though he may be--is apparently having trouble finding paying work and openly bridged the possibility of crashing with me for awhile. I have mixed feelings about this as you can probably guess. On the one hand, blood trumps everything and that's just how I feel. (I even housed his half brother for awhile even. The same half brother who wrote me a 300 dollar check that bounced.) Yet my slightly more vindictive hand thinks: "You reap what you sow" and "There must be a god of karma". I should point out that my cousin, who's a year older than me, has three strikes against him. He's black, he seems to be slightly overweight--which as someone who's slightly overweight as well I can tell you: this disqualified me from probably as many jobs as being black--and he's pushing 50. These are things that don't help in this particular job economy.

I should also note that jobs in the private sector really aren't unionized. By not unionized, I mean its kind of hard to keep a job even if you get one. "At will" means you don't really have any rights on the job. Ever lose your temper at the job? Ever lose your temper at the job justifiably? Did you keep that job? Ever organized a union and been fired a week later? Ever had a white co worker tell you on his last day that he was working relentlessly to get you, the only black employee, fired? Ever feel that you weren't given the best leads by a boss who you were certain was playing favorites? Ever feel any real job security at an at will job? I never have. But that's for another essay titled "Why I Didn't Mind Being a 99er." And that was before the downturn. If you browse through the Craigslist listings you can see the return of just straight out rip off jobs. Jobs where you lose money by doing the work. Jobs that are clearly pyramid schemes or feature psychotic bosses or just plain bad deals. Or that offer of 7.25 an hour. How do you live on that? I feel like strangling people when I get a request to check my credit history. (Hope the EEOC does something about that...)

So I know what my cousin is up against. Yet, to return to my vindictive hand, this is the world that the Republican Party has created. It should be clear that the GOP is the party of class stratification and third world wages. Their tactics, plain to anyone who can fuckin' read, has been to sabotage the economy in the hopes that they'll make electoral gains. It worked in the midterms and it might work in 2012. Frankly, I blame the national dems for not fighting like the Wisconsin 14. That's leadership. Even if those guys lose I know they've got my back. But here's the thing: I know who my enemies are.

I've always thought that my cousin was the kind of black guy who would fight for the Confederacy and then be surprised to feel the lash upon his back. I think he's genuinely surprised that he's having a hard time finding work. But, beyond all that, beyond the God of Karma, can I forgive a guy for openly rooting for what Ted Rall once described as the most successful fascist party on the planet?

I mean, if a foreign agent did what the republicans routinely do you would consider it an act of war. Osama Bin Laden wants to cut 1 billion dollars from state public education. The fiend. Jihadists want to undercut the EPA and allow industry to pump carcinogens into your air, water and food supplies. The bastards. (They also want to cut funding for cancer research. Now that's evil...) Old fashioned commies are giving away our natural resources, subsidizing oil industries and allowing BP to drill for oil in the Gulf. O that darned red menace. Sissified French atheist abortionists want to lower your wages so that you can be paid like Mexicans (Actually, this is a bi partisan effort but you get the point...) and give all your money to corporate executives. Predictable really. A radical anarchist thinks public teachers, who work like dogs and I know because my mother was one, shouldn't get paid decently or have any say in their class sizes, (probably so they can safely declare public education a failure.). Somebody send in the troops.

Would you want this guy, who endorses all these things--if he does so knowingly he's evil and if he does so unknowingly he's stupid-- as a roommate? Would you want him to get back on his feet so he can quote Rush Limbaugh to you? I have to be honest I'm just not sure...Perhaps there are limits to even blood. Or as I told him: "If you need a job, you're an idiot to vote Republican."

Jan. 1, 2011

ITEM: I'm still here. Who knew. More writing on the way this year. I might even publish something.

(Recent Archive)

Tuesday April 15, 2008

Bloom County character Oliver Wendell Jones and NPR Senior Producer Walter Ray Watson: Separated at birth? Actually, it was a closer resemblance before Walt got the dreds...

Morrissey was right. We hate it when our friends become successful. My former New Pittsburgh Courier colleague Walter Ray Watson is the recipient of a Nieman Fellowship. I think that means he gets to teach and write for a year or a summer and he still gets to go back to his job at NPR when he's done. One of the great crimes of this world would be if Walter was unable to finish a book--I mean, any book--before he leaves this plane. One of the most gifted natural stylists I've ever seen, let alone worked with. Congrats. I should note that this gives me another opportunity to take a shot at my old union busting Courier boss Rod Doss. Keep in mind that not only did Rod not hire Tony Norman, arguably the most interesting essayist in the local corporate media, he wouldn't give Walter a recommendation. True, that's because he sort of supported the union I organized down there. I guess that's the kind of thing that angers a pro life republican. But, and I do so hate giving Rod any credit at all, perhaps its best to have had a bad father than no father at all. Rod at least hired you when the white papers in this town wouldn't. I have to also confess I'm also interested in the topic he's studying which is: "will study how the new media will affect communities that lack access to the changing way news and information are delivered." Welp, as Walt used to write, I think the answer is that the new media will probably supplant and replace most of what now constitutes the mainstream media or at least that's my sincere hope. I do hope that NPR is the last to fall, however, in that they do represent excellence. One snarky point: shouldn't someone who's writing about the New Media actually have a blog or two? Then again, I suppose you could talk about my Morrissey impression among other embarrassing hijinks that we had at the Courier, which we once joked about turning into a sitcom proposal...

June 16

Keep checking out her work. Someone stole her bike recently. Goodwills and second hand shops have great cheap bikes.

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