‘Operation Titstorm’ Hackers Have Declared Cyberwar on Australia
ASHER MOSES writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Groups opposing the government’s internet censorship plans have condemned attacks on government websites, saying it will do little to help their cause, while Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called them “totally irresponsible”.
Hackers connected with the group Anonymous, known for its war against Scientology, this morning launched a broad attack on government websites.
Alex Jones Exposes Agenda To ‘Blacklist’ Dissenting Websites
By Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones for Prison Planet.com:
The Western world, from Australia to the United States, UK and parts of Europe, are moving in a unified front toward dictatorial Internet censorship. Australia has led the way, despite outcry from its populace, by “filtering” out certain banned content. In the United States, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, in continuing his family’s tradition of oppressing free humanity, has pushed forward Cybersecurity legislation that has already passed the House. He has done so in the name of warding off ghastly cyber “attackers” conceivably fronting for al Qaeda while ushering in a means to restrict free speech and expression online for the general population.
With Obama’s support, most of the developed world has accepted plans for government-approved online activity…
YouTube Censors Marijuana Question In Obama Interview
Thanks Steve for the news tip! Steve Elliott writes in the Toke of the Town:
If you voted for marijuana as a CitizenTube question, then your vote didn’t count. Yes, questions about marijuana were the most popular in the CitizenTube voting Monday afternoon.
But YouTube, in a gutless move, decided at the last minute not to present the highest ranked questions to the President. Initial reports that the President had ignored the marijuana questions were inaccurate; YouTube took pot, the top vote getter, out of the running.
President Obama never even got an opportunity to answer the most popular question of all.
Wait, what? “We’ll let you vote, but don’t expect it to actually MEAN anything.”
If they were going to ignore the questions that got the most votes, then why, exactly, did YouTube ask viewers to…
California Schools Ban The Dictionary
The Guardian reports that schools in Southern California have removed the dictionary from classrooms because it contains dirty words. No, really. I think this is how civilizations collapse:
Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms…after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for “oral sex.”
Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the “sexually graphic” entry is “just not age appropriate.”
The dictionary’s online definition of the term is “oral stimulation of the genitals”. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.
…
TSA Threatens Blogger Who Posted New Screening Directive
Kim Zetter writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:
Image: TSA Special Agent John Enright (left) speaks to Steven Frischling (right) after returning his laptop, outside of Frischling’s home in Niantic, Conn., on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009.
Two bloggers received home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents Tuesday after they published a new TSA directive that revises screening procedures and puts new restrictions on passengers in the wake of a recent bombing attempt by the so-called underwear bomber.
Special agents from the TSA’s Office of Inspection interrogated two U.S. bloggers, one of them an established travel columnist, and served them each with a civil subpoena demanding information on the anonymous source that provided the TSA document.
The document, which the two bloggers published within minutes of each other Dec. 27, was sent by TSA to airlines…
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (Documentary)
Via www.burroughsthemovie.com:
The film investigates the life of legendary beat author and American icon, William S. Burroughs. Born the heir of the Burroughs’ adding machine estate, he struggled throughout his life with addiction, control systems and self. He was forced to deal with the tragedy of killing his wife and the repercussions of neglecting his son. His novel, Naked Lunch, was one of the last books to be banned by the U.S. government. Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer testified on behalf of the book. The courts eventually overturned their decision in 1966, ruling that the book had important social value. It remains one of the most recognized literary works of the 20th century.
William Burroughs was one of the first to cross the dangerous boundaries of queer and drug culture in the 1950s, and write about his experiences. Eventually he was hailed the godfather of the beat generation and influenced artists for generations to come. However, his friends were left wondering, did William ever find happiness? This extremely personal documentary breaks the surface of the troubled and brilliant world of one of the greatest authors of all time.
Long Hair, Costumes and Kids: Things Disney Parks Have Banned
Alvin Ward writes in mental_floss:
Disneyland may be the Happiest Place on Earth, but don’t think that means you can just waltz in and do whatever you want. In fact, Mickey Mouse’s theme parks have banned quite a few things over the years. Here are just a few of the things on which the Mouse has dropped his hammer.
1. Long Hair: Until the late 1960s, men could either have flowing locks or enjoy Adventureland, but they definitely couldn’t do both. According to Snopes, if a long-haired fellow tried to buy a ticket, a cast member would discreetly and politely inform the man that his hairdo didn’t jive with the park’s unwritten dress code before escorting him from the park.
2. Facial Hair: It’s tough to find a picture of Walt Disney without a mustache, but for decades it was even tougher to find a Disney employee who had a ‘stache of his own. Starting in 1957, workers at Disney parks were not allowed to have long hair, grow beards, or wear mustaches. (The underlying logic was that park patrons wouldn’t want to buy a $9 soda from some filthy bearded hippie or mustachioed Snidely Whiplash type.)
In 2000, Disney was having trouble drumming up enough manpower to staff its parks, so it relaxed the facial hair ban. Employees were finally allowed to grow mustaches, provided they kept them trimmed and groomed. Beards didn’t fare so well, though; they stayed on the forbidden list.
Read more in mental_floss
Twitter and a Newspaper Untie a Gag Order
Noam Cohen reports for the New York Times:
Twitter has been credited with helping to organize political protests and shine a light on abuses around the world. At the same time, the ubiquitous service has been criticized for disrespecting the sanctity of once-private halls of deliberation — whether a criminal jury’s chambers or an N.B.A. locker room.
In the rarest of cases, apparently, Twitter can do both. That is the view of the editor of The Guardian in London, Alan Rusbridger, who, after prevailing in a legal fight over the publication of secret documents, wrote that “the Twittersphere blew away conventional efforts to buy silence,” as a headline on his column put it.
Last month, a British judge ruled that material obtained by Guardian journalists about a multinational corporation had to be kept…
U.S. Map Of Banned Books
There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 513 in 2008. But the total is far larger. 70 to 80 percent are never reported.
This map is drawn from cases documented by ALA and the Kids’ Right to Read Project, a collaboration of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Note that the cases mapped are only from the past three years (2007-2009).
Chomsky Book Banned at U.S. Prison Camp
Carol Rosenberg reports in the Miami Herald:
Professor Noam Chomsky may be among America’s most enduring anti-war activists. But the leftist intellectual’s anthology of post 9/11 commentary is taboo at Guantánamo’s prison camp library, which offers books and videos on Harry Potter, World Cup soccer and Islam.
U.S. military censors recently rejected a Pentagon lawyer’s donation of an Arabic-language copy of the political activist and linguistic professor’s 2007 anthology Interventions for the library, which has more than 16,000 items.
Chomsky, 80, who has been voicing disgust with U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War, reacted with irritation and derision. “This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,” he told The Miami Herald by e-mail after learning of the decision.
“Of some incidental interest, perhaps, is the nature of the book they banned. It consists of op-eds written for The New York Times syndicate and distributed by them. The subversive rot must run very deep.”
North Carolina Church to Burn ‘Satan’s Books’ in Time For Halloween
Kathleen Miller writes on RAW Story:
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a “Halloween book burning” to purge the area of “Satan’s” works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are “scriptural bases” for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18–20: “And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the…
The Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010: Wall Street, Nuclear Waste in the U.S.
The invaluable Project Censored has announced it’s annual list. Here are the top 5, but be sure to visit their site for the full list:
1. U.S. Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
2. U.S. Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
Get the rest here
