COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Elephant Bar Post Banned in Britain

For some reason this Elephant Bar Post keeps getting banned from Google's search engines in Britain.
It has been banned and taken down by Google UK recently on 1/29/10, and previously:
Blocked URLs 12/29/09
Blocked URLs 11/29/09
Blocked URLs 10/30/09
British Defamation Complaint to Google


Blocked URLsOctober 30, 2009

For legal reasons, we've excluded from our search results content located at or under the following URL/directory:
http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/03/barack-obama-tony-rezko-and-nadhmi.html
Removed from:

*.google.uk

Cause: We were requested to remove this URL from our search results in order to comply with local law.
____________________________

I thought banning web posts and political commentary was a Chinese deal. Political correctness? I have no idea.

I do Know that the combination of Google technology and big overreaching government can be toxic to personal liberty. Here is something you probably did not know:



Google Goggles looks sort of cool, no harm there you say, but wait. Think about it , the name itself is creepy, but think about what could be done with this technology.

What if you take a picture of people walking in the street and google archives them? (England is street camera crazy.) This google technology could be refined to recognize faces and government could catalog your every move. An individual could stalk you, your wife or your children anywhere, anywhere.

I have no idea who in the UK is monitoring The Elephant Bar or why. I do know that google has turned into an information monster, for good or evil.

If a government can demand information be repressed does that right extend to an individual? Can I or anyone else demand that archived information be removed? if the STASI in Communist East Germany was evil for maintaining dossiers on citizens, is not the more efficient Google at least worrisome?

Anything written on a blog is done with full knowledge that it is for the world to see. A government like China or its soul mate England can obviously repress free expression. Should an individual have the same right to opt out of an information dump about them, when most of the information was never intended for public exposure?

Should something someone said or did in the eighth grade stay in the public domain forever?




83 comments:

  1. Gay Marriage Puts Mexico City at Center of Debate

    A new Mexico City law goes into effect March 4 that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, propelling the city to the forefront of the global gay rights movement.
    ---
    Opportunity knocks:

    Encourage Gay Newlywed "Hispanics" to adopt emotionally stunted MS 13 Drug Gang Homicidal Obsessives, enabling the young lovers to guide these victims through the pothole-ridden ride to cream-filled Hostess Donut-Hole-Filling Maturity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The initial stories on the Google/China dispute indicated that Google was "able to gain access" to a computer in Taiwan that they suspected of causing the problems. Which begs the question how did they gain access?

    An article I saw in the past week stated that Google has gone to the NSA seeking help with the current cybersecurity issues in China. On its face, it sounds like a good thing as our government seems far less interested in pushing the interests of our business community than most (all?) countries around the world. However, one has to ask if the NSA provides assistance will it inturn expect quid pro quo from Google?

    The next logical question is what does it mean to me?


    .

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  3. Stones into Schools:

    Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan was released on December 1, 2009. Over the past sixteen years, Greg Mortenson, through his nonprofit Central Asia Institute (CAI), has worked to promote peace through education by establishing more than 130 schools, most of them for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    The story of how this remarkable humanitarian campaign began was told in his bestselling 2006 book, Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson’s philosophies about building relationships, empowering communities, and educating girls have struck a powerful chord. Hundreds of communities and universities, as well as several branches of the U.S. military, have used Three Cups of Tea as a common read.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Google enables a "peaceful" takedown of Taiwan?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cyberwar is Peace.

    Freedom = Slavery.

    ReplyDelete
  6. <A href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/02/fbi_wants_to_know_where_youve.html
    >FBI Wants To Know What You're Up To</a>

    ReplyDelete
  7. The backstory in the Google v. China brouhaha is that Chinese PLA has been engaging in cyber war on everyone else. They have hacked into systems all over the world, stealing code and information and in some cases, inserting extra code.

    Angela Merkel is the sole world leader to stand up against their behavior. The US has been very quiet on the matter. Why?

    A new clue comes recently from Australia which declines to make an issue of an Australian citizen being held by China. It could be that the whirled does not want to bite the Chinese hand which feeds it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You mean someone actually reads the shit we write? Really?


    Guess I better clean up my spelling, huh?


    Banned in Britain - I'm proud of you, Deuce.

    ReplyDelete
  9. As of 2009, Mortenson has established or significantly supports 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 44,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.

    His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996, he survived an eight day armed kidnapping by the Taliban in Pakistan’ Northwest Frontier Province tribal areas, escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going to a leather-tanning factory. He has overcome fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations, and also received threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.

    Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.

    He is one of few foreigners who has worked extensively for sixteen years (over 72 months in the field) in rural villages where few foreigners go.

    Congresswoman Mary Bono (Rep – Cali.) says, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than I did during all our briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero, whose courage, and compassion exemplify the true ideals of the American spirit.”

    ReplyDelete
  10. " hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides"

    One of the fantasies I harbor to prove that I am not the hapless schlub Iyam.

    ReplyDelete
  11. BTW - Google was upset that China PLA has hacked into their systems.

    ReplyDelete
  12. (speaking only of the execution...
    judging by English Major Standards.)

    ReplyDelete
  13. "It could be that the whirled does not want to bite the Chinese hand which feeds it."
    ---
    George Friedman (Stratfor dot com) insists that the ROC is a paper tiger, burdened by billions living in sub-subsitence poverty.

    ReplyDelete
  14. MLD:

    "West Lahunga Beach
    -- or Bust!
    "

    LOL

    ReplyDelete
  15. Do Demos Lack a Concience?
    Well, duh!

    It is not just the dichotomy of Obama's words versus his lifestyle that bear out the hypocrisy of his character and his soul (or lack thereof). It is the arrogance on display since the day he was inaugurated that is most astounding. It is the self-entitlement, the "I won," the belief that "the big difference here and in '94 was you got me," and the egocentric narcissism that is not only disgusting to watch, but has additionally resulted in policies detrimental to America.

    This conceit is what is driving Obama, his staff, and the Democrats in Congress to rule as dictators rather than as democratically elected leaders. And it will be the ruination of the nation if they are not all booted out as soon as possible.

    The shocking steps the Democrats took to pass health care legislation prior to Scott Brown's election are historic. The corruption, lies, and concealment were not politics as usual; they were politics of the worst kind. To what can we attribute the number of hours dedicated to the drafting and passage of a health care bill, the secrecy under which it had been drafted, the partisanship which had closed out any Republican input, and the name-calling and vehemence that pervaded the process?


    ---
    Comrade Rufus will arrive to announce that they are doing it all for us, and, the kids...

    and that there is no difference between...

    ReplyDelete
  16. My daughter rented it from netflix. She said it was the funniest thing ever. I thought, I would share. Our humor is somewhat different than others. We are now going to make margaritas and play dress up. My daughter is 24. I guess when you're snowed in, you'll find anything to do to keep you occupied.

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  17. I thought you would like that, Doug.

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  18. There's something about Lego people...

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  19. Comrade Rufus has moved on, Doug. The People have spoken.

    ReplyDelete
  20. As far as the FBI wanting to track where, I've been on the Internets, they can bite me. Maybe if parents kept a better eye on their children and what they did on their spare time than there wouldn't be any need for protecting children from the big bad of the Internets. It's ridicules what these kids get away with.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Kings, and Queens, and bonny, bonehead Pwinces. In the 21'st Century.


    An irrelevant people.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm gonna go to the lecture on Hawking Radiation at the U of I monday night, "Are Black Holes Really Black?"

    I've stewed about this for a long time.

    Today I'm thinking about buying a bottle of rum, cause I can't think of anything else to do.

    Wednesday I go to an idiot Planning and Zoning meeting, that I may record from the TV, and post it, so you all know what a bunch of dumb shits we have on these stupid committees around here.

    Then after we get the Dibbles cleaned out, who are leaving, we'll try heading east again, right after we finish the taxes.

    30 inches, that's a lot, you are snowed in.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Global warming continues.

    At last report, officially 26.7 inches of snow was measured at Philadelphia International Airport, 3.5 inches more than was reported for the Dec. 19-20 storm and second all-time behind only the 30.7 of Jan. 7-8, 1996.

    Before this winter, Philadelphia had never had two snowfalls of more than 14 inches in the same season.

    The seasonal total of 53.9 and counting puts the winter of 2009-10 at No. 4 on the all-time Philadelphia list..

    This marks the first time in the history of recordkeeping, dating to 1884, that Philadelphia has had two snowstorms of this magnitude in the same season. The official total for Dec. 19-20 was 23.2, and this one is likely to be close to that.

    The seasonal total of 45.0, and counting - heavy snow continues and more is in the forecast for midweek - puts the winter of 2009-10 at No. 6 on the all-time Philadelphia list.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I wonder what it's like in southern Ohio. Probably not bad, pretty low along the river. What's the elevation of Philadelphia?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Here's one that google.uk will hate.

    Global Warming Skepticism on the Rise in Britain


    Deuce, might i humbly recommend putting Wattsupwiththat on the blogroll?

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/

    ReplyDelete
  26. Answering my own question--

    The lowest point is sea level, while the highest point is in Chestnut Hill, at approximately 445 feet (136 m) above sea level (near the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike).[19] Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of Philadelphia. ...

    Can't get much lower than sea level, without scuba gear.

    ReplyDelete
  27. If you do decide to add watts up to the blogroll, you might also consider Bloomberg while you're at it.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/

    It's probably the best One-Stop for financial, economic news, globally.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Question of the day--

    On whose gravestone is it written

    "Well taken all in all I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia"?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Or was that just a line in a movie?

    Anyway, who owns it?

    ReplyDelete
  30. I don't know, Bob. You'd have to "look up" to see your bobber in 26% of The Netherlands.

    ReplyDelete
  31. You have five more minutes to answer.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Well you're right there Rufus, I'd forgot about the Dutch, and Death Valley.

    ReplyDelete
  33. W.C. Fields said he wanted that on his tombstone, but I doubt that it's really there.

    He was constantly making fun of Philadelphia.

    ReplyDelete
  34. DING,DING,DING for Rufus!

    You win his last cigar.

    ReplyDelete
  35. "The Nation"

    "People's Daily"

    You're welcome,

    Comrade Doug

    ReplyDelete
  36. Does Watts Up consider "The Volt" to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, Rufus?

    ...worthless, overpriced, resource-intensive POS.

    You may have moved on, I'm still on your sorry ass.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I don't know, Doug.

    Relax. Go buy yourself some more of that Saudi Arabian/Yemeni oil. All's good.

    ReplyDelete
  38. They need the money. I mean, they almost ran out of hi-jackers on 9-11. They were down to 19, after all.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Batteries, Rufus...
    B a t t e r i e s
    Drill, Baby Drill!

    ReplyDelete
  40. Tea Party Looks to Move From Fringe to Force
    About 600 people gathered to get serious about electing conservatives.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Batteries, Electric Motors, IC Engine, Generators, Wiring, Electronic Controls, Power Grid Drain...
    EXPENSE!
    (Purchase and Maintenance)
    What's not to like?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Cost of Commute, Doug-O. Cost of Commute. Total cost of ownership. Everything else is just blathering.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Buddy Larsen Bing Search:

    Jewish Russian Telegraph: KGB Letter: Ted Kennedy offered to help Yuri ...Ted Kennedy was impressed with Andropov, offered Soviet dictator to help with a PR campaign to neutralize Reagan. There is no end to the bottom. CNSnews.com: KGB Letter Outlines ...

    ReplyDelete
  44. Yeah, Batteries and Grid to Service Mere Pieces of Cake.

    Cake requiring a millenium to bake.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Any guesses on the cost of the Vaunted Volt?

    Care to bet on cost benefit total?

    Blatherings, indeed!

    ReplyDelete
  46. Take a young, married guy in Los Angeles with a 40 mile, round-trip, commute in the year 2012. Gasoline - $4.50 Gal.

    Round trip with the Volt: about $2.00.

    Round trip with gasoiline - $9.00.

    $7.00/day times 250 days. Savings/yr - $1,750.00

    In 2014 - maybe, $2,000.00/yr.

    In 2016 - WTF knows?

    ReplyDelete
  47. I think the Volt will end up costing about $30,000.00. More the first year to capture the gummint rebate (available for the first X number of sales.)

    ReplyDelete
  48. It'll need half again as many tires...don't forget the trailer needed to carry the aux power unit that drives the water pump for the oversized cooling system that cools those batteries to avoid explosions along the Ventura Freeway.

    Those batteries will be produced by a government subsidized plant to keep the Government Motors Volt on schedule for release when? Consumers need not worry about battery reliability. They'll be backed by the full faith and virtue of the U.S. taxpayer.

    Buy Ford.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Production is scheduled to start in Nov. Dealers will be able to start placing orders two weeks later.

    Nothing against Fords. I've owned Many Fords in my life. But, since I'm part-owner of GM, I'd just as soon see it do well, also.

    BTW, Ford will have a similar set-up in the Escape within a year, or so.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I think the batteries have to be warranteed for 8 years (10 in California,) and about 180,000 to 200,000 miles. That's to, at least, 75% power IIRC.

    ReplyDelete
  51. I think, I have cabin fever. Do you think it's possible after only one day?

    Well, now I have longer hair because I was so bored, I allowed my daughter to put hair extensions in my hair. And now I look like Roseanne Roseannadanna She promises me that it will go down.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Hey, kiddo, I don't argue with you much, but you don't know shit bout cabin fever.

    Cabin fever is when the wench, the witching wench, 20 years old, has left you, 21, the bitch, left you alone, to be a slut, and you fianally grow up, and face the loss, and go farming, with nothing but your books, and your backbone, alone.

    That's cabin fever. Living there alone.

    And the transition is wonderful, too.


    And you learn, really well, bout all this true and false soul mate stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  53. And some of it is true.

    ReplyDelete
  54. And the dangers of false soul mates was a topic I was going to get around to, after my dissertation on the similarites and not, of Weiss and Ring, and the other world, the dangers wonderfully illustrated in a humorous chapter in Past Lives by Peter Fenwick, a big PHD feller in English society, who I like, a warning to be cautious about falling for just any soul mate that comes off the street. heh.

    But there is something to this soul mate stuff, too.

    I am thinking about turning to astrology, specialising in moon signs, for further investigation.

    Fenwick is a good read.

    When I sober up from my bottle of rum, I will continue to answer Allen, with my demands he read Black Elk Speaks.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Which is a true vision, unadulterated by all the crap of our modern society.

    "I didn't have to remember my great vision, it remembered itself all these years."

    Find that on tv.

    The transcripts are at the University of Nebraska.

    We have lost something important.

    ReplyDelete
  56. I'm regressed, to just a while ago..I can see clearly now.... she is in a beautiful blue dress....she has lovely lovely long arms....she has lovely long legs....so swayed on her left side, her arm...her smile....then, flash, it is gone, like a dream....

    ReplyDelete
  57. Godammit read that, would you people. It is all there, the supporting powers, the grandfathers, the other world, the crossing of the river, the coming back of the enlightened to help the tribe, like Christ, the recognition of the pure, and the impure, the secret telling to only those fit to know, read it goddamnit, the always something more.

    Goodnight.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Sarah Palin's Tea Party Speech is on Fox News, now.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Cabin fever?

    How deep is the snow outside. Pile high like the west wing of the White House or just up to your calves?

    It looks like they had quite a party on Dupont circle today. Big turnout for the snowball fights.

    Go sledding. Go Nordic.

    ReplyDelete
  60. No sledding for me, besides, it's time for bed now, Whit.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Where is Allen?

    He is a man I can talk to.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Okay, Bobbo.

    Let's talk.

    What's the frequency of the vibrations from hell? Above or below the white noise of tinnitus?

    Enquiring minds still want to know.

    ---------

    Back home on the ridge they got that much snow in one storm, and then had storms blowing in for the next 8 days, or so. Each dropping another 6"-8"-10" or thereabouts.

    Made me glad to be in Arkansas.

    Easterners are a bunch of pussies.

    I recall having to get out in the dark to rig a tree trunk beam under the peak of the wall tent, with log posts, to keep the damned thing from collapsing under the snow. The mules broke their pickets that night and tore hell out of the camp kitchen looking for oatmeal. That was at work. In a different life.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Hi everyone..
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    ReplyDelete
  64. "We are at war..... To win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.''

    "The only place the left hasn't placed the blame is on their agenda,'' Palin said. "The Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda... out of touch, out of date... and, it's running out of time.''

    "From Virginia to New Jersey to Massachusetts, voters are sending a message,'' the former Alaska governor told the assembly tonight. "If there's hope in Massachusetts,'' she said, "there's hope everywhere.''

    The nation is unsafe, she suggested. She spoke of the Nigerian who failed in his attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day. "It was a Christmas miracle, and that is not the way the system is supposed to work.'' There are questions "this foreign terrorist'' should have had to answer "before he was lawyered up,'' she said to cheers in the hall

    ReplyDelete
  65. Mrs Palin exposes her lack of legal, Constitutional understanding, again.

    To suggest that the United States is at war, absurd. Beyond absurd, it is a ludicrous statement for a serious opponent of the President, of the Congress, to make.

    By making such a statement, that the United States is at war, she just falls into step with the current crop of corrupted politicos.

    The is no declaration, the US is not at war. It is just policing a couple of Islamic Republics and providing a security service to the whirled, on the high seas..

    ReplyDelete
  66. The Evolution of Charles:

    In 1978, Krauthammer quit medical practice to direct planning in psychiatric research for the Jimmy Carter administration, and began contributing to The New Republic magazine.

    During the presidential campaign of 1980, Krauthammer served as a speech writer to Vice President Walter Mondale.

    In January 1981, Krauthammer began his journalistic career, joining The New Republic as a writer and editor. His New Republic writings won the 1984 "National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism."

    In 1983, he began writing essays for Time magazine. In 1985, he began a weekly column for the Washington Post for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Somehow the people's passion is for the ignorant Palin.

    Like Barry, I must conclude, the people are idiots.

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  68. Holder/Clinton are right:
    It's a legal matter.

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  69. Lawyers!
    We need more Lawyers!

    ReplyDelete
  70. "William Burck, a former deputy counsel to President Bush, says the idea of the HIG is "fabulous" — but it needs to be implemented. The fact that it hasn't been a year after the Obama Administration scrapped the Bush policies is "shocking," he says. "Unfortunately, I think it plays into the view that the Administration doesn't take these issues as seriously as it should."

    Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1958997,00.html#ixzz0er3ycpDi
    "

    ReplyDelete
  71. While I was preparing the next post, you two were preparing it for me!

    ReplyDelete
  72. Repost them on the next thread, if you don't mind. thanks.

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  73. The campaign against the current crop of Federal Socialists, doug-o, needs to be made by exposing their disregard for the Constitution. Both Parties.

    The most obvious and egregious example of that unconstitutional Federal activity is the undeclared "Long War".

    That the current Administration has abandon that "war" rhetoric, and has moved into the full criminal prosecution mode exemplifies that the Obamamericans "get it".

    Mrs Palin if she wants to campaign across America, for a policy that the US Congress should declare war upon our enemies, should then identify the enemy, their locale and sponsors.

    All of which would be required for a full debate, prior to Congressional action.

    Instead she uses the "war" rhetoric, without campaigning for any specific "War".

    The rhetoric is popular, no doubt, but that she and the others who use it are not pursuing a serious call to action.

    Not after the last 8 years of the bitter sweet taste of the "Long War"

    The scope and scale of the actions required by a real war, well that goes far beyond the authority provided in either the authorizations of use of force, in Afpakistan or Iraq.

    Those both being limited and local authorizations for the President to use the military, but both falling well short of a declaration of war.

    There is the issue that could rally the "Right", but even Mrs Palin will not touch it.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
    And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! :)

    ReplyDelete