An Illusion of Choice

You kind of have to feel sorry for the average American voter really. I mean, the mainstream media would have them believe that the only decision is between Republican and Democrat. So that would mean either:

(a) giving Obama another crack at the whip after he promised change and yet failed to bring in a decent healthcare system, failed to close Guantanamo and has systematically failed to respect international law.
or
(b) vote in Romney, who is someone that absolutely cannot stop the torrent of horse shit coming out of his own mouth and has a knack for tax evasion.

Hmmm, not a great choice is it?

So please, voters of the world,vote  for a third party; vote Green, vote Libertarian, vote Pirate, vote Respect: just please vote for anyone who is less likely to start wars than whatever idiots your CNN / Fox / BBC are giving all their air time to.

Inaccurate

It seems that there's been some notable cases of people missing the mark lately.

From this idiot Republican (yep, you've guessed it, also a Tea-Party member) congressman and his now infamous "legitimate rape" comments; to certain members of the New York Police Department who seem to have the accuracy of a stormtrooper trying to shoot Luke Skywalker.

Across the North Atlantic, it was not a lack of accuracy with weapons, but vision, that had one British police officer "accosting a blameless rail traveller in west London" believing him to be Julian Assange. Which leads me to wonder as to whether the officer in question spends time outside the Ecuadorian embassy harassing the members of the public that are holding "I am Julian Assange" placards or if anyone with blonde/grey/silver hair will soon be suspects.

The most shocking, although unfortunately as equally unsurprising, is the aquittal by an Israeli judge of the Israel Defence Force (I.D.F) for the death of Rachel Corrie, an activist who was killed defending the homes of Palestinians from illegal destruction by the I.D.F.
Corrie, who appeared in the fantastic documentary film Occupation 101 and her untimely death, and now,nine years later, the aquittal of the I.D.F bring into light some of the horrors of the Zionist agenda.
Some moving personal accounts by other eye-witness activists can be seen here, and there is an excellent piece by the insightful Glenn Greenwald here.
I'm wondering if Obama will take time out from his busy schedule of adding people to his drone kill list  (although drones may be technically accurate, the policy is 100% guaranteed short-sighted) to address the issue. For the sake of Rachel Corrie's family, I hope so, but to work out what his words would really mean after recently giving Israel a further $70 million to spend on weapons would be a shot in the dark.

Thought Crimes

So; it has come to this. A law abiding citizen getting arrested and taken to a mental institute against their will and getting locked up there for 30 days for his comments on Facebook!

Now, I by no means agree with all of his comments; I mean this "God set America apart from the other nations of this world" - is all a bit too 'we are the chosen ones' kind of dross that the citizens of many other countries are fond of spouting (and we all know the consequences of that attitude). I do agree with many though (the 9/11 fraud, the chaos of the federal reserve, the erosion of the Bill of Rights, amongst others).

However, the point is not whether I or anyone else agrees or disagrees with him, it's that people should have freedom of speech. As far as I'm aware, the man in question, Mr. Raub, was not being racist or threatening anyone so why was he arrested kidnapped? Oh yes, that's right, his mental health - his caring government was so concerned about what was happening in his brain they decided to capture him before he did anything.

Things are not looking too free in the land of the pre-emptive drone strike, and unfortunately Australia has just joined the growing list of countries that might be next.

All Your Phones Are Belong To Us

Welcome to my first ever blag. Instead of talking about the wonderful news of Julian Assange's gain of asylum status, or the not-so-wonderful decision by USA's vassal state the United Kingdom to not recognise such status; which will be dealt with quite adequately on the interwebs (if you agree with freedom of expression and due process click here, if you don't, click here), I'll be taking about this guy who had the misfortune to be caught by the DEA with a (literal) truck-load of weed.

Now, there's no doubt that driving around with 1,100lb (500kg) of ganja in your mobile home can be construed as drug trafficking (even if you're going to a Burning Man festival), and sure, you'll probably need to launder some money, because if your profits from selling something that is less dangerous than cigarettes show up on  your taxes, you'll be heading straight to prison, because hey, we're talking about the USA, the land of the free orange jumpsuit.

The crux of the matter is though, that the DEA used his cell phone GPS data without a warrant to catch him, and that Supreme Court Judge John Rogers ruled (he) "did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location". (Source)

Ahhh the good ol' Supreme Court "where the Constitution don't mean squat" (Nixon, Futurama).

So there you go, you can buy your phone with your money, pay the monthly bill with your money, but it's not yours to have any privacy on; because, if conditions suit, it is just another one of the governments' tracking tools for you that  you're paying for.

And so if you are driving around with a truck full of weed,  take the battery out of your phone, and wrap it in its own tin foil hat. Because, even if you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that your own government won't destroy civil liberties to come and get you.