Orwell Was/Is Right Of Course

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Humanity is Indebted to Humans

“We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins – they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones.

The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of today – of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars – neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience – and for them all, human is indebted to human.”  Robert Ingersoll
Amen brother!

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Internet Censorship ??

Surfin’ the internet today and look what I found.  Do you think this is true?  Will BIG business telecoms take over our internet?  I have a feeling that if this were to happen most of the content and user base would dry up.

Canadian ISPs Plan Net Censorship

Concerns grow that Canada’s plan will wipeout alt news sites and spread to U.S.

By Mike Finch

A net-neutrality activist group has uncovered plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada. By 2012, the group says, the trend will be global.

Bell Canada and TELUS, Canada’s two largest Internet service providers (ISPs), will begin charging per-site fees on most Internet sites, reports anonymous sources within TELUS.

“It’s beyond censorship, it is killing the biggest ecosystem of free expression and freedom of speech that has ever existed,” I Power spokesperson Reese Leysen said. I Power was the first group to report on the possible changes.

Bell Canada has not returned calls or emails.

The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a certain point. Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether.

“We had inside sources from bigger companies who gave us the information on how exclusivity deals are being made at this moment between ISPs and big content providers (like TV production studios and major video game publishers) to decide which web sites will be in the ‘standard package’ offered to their customers, leaving all the rest of the Internet unreachable unless you pay extra subscription fees per every ‘non-standard’ site you visit,” Leysen said. “We knew the source to be 100% reliable, but we also knew the story would be highly controversial if we released the information. We did it because we knew that we’d get more official confirmations once we’d come forward with it. And indeed that is what happened. Dylan Pattyn, who is writing the soon-to-be published article for Time Magazine, received confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and TELUS after we released the information.”

The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top 100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package. Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a fee for every visit.

“The Internet will become a playground for billion-dollar content providers just like television is,” said Leysen. “It won’t be possible for a few teenagers in their parents’ basement to start a small site like E-bay that then grows out to be the next big thing anymore. Right now the Internet belongs to those with the greatest ideas. In the future, it’ll belong to those with the biggest budgets.”

With plans in Canada uncovered, I Power thinks that companies in the United States and other nations are also planning similar actions.

“By 2012 ISPs all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet,” Leysen said.

Such a subscription plan could possibly restrict free speech far beyond even the current restrictions set by the governments of communist China. Not only would browsing be limited, but privacy would be invaded, as every web site viewed would likely be recorded on a bill in a manner similar to a phone bill.

Why would the ISPs institute such a plan? One word: money.

“This new subscription model is commercially far more beneficial to them than how it is now,” Leysen said. “If Fox wants to launch a new television show online, they’ll have to pay big money to all major ISPs to ensure that their new show will be offered and pushed in the ‘standard package’ of sites/services/channels that people will get through their Internet access. Plus ISPs will also gain extra revenue out of people trying to access the rest of the Internet, as they’ll pay extra subscription fees for every web site they visit.”

But it’s not just the big ISPs that stand to gain.

“Marketing and big budget ‘content-pushing’ just doesn’t seem to work on the Internet, and this is something that several industries want fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the marketing and entertainment industry,” Leysen said.

The ISPs are said to be confident they can institute such plans through deceptive marketing and fear tactics.

“The Internet will be more and more marketed as a place full of child pornography and other horrible illegal activity in order to get people on their [the ISP’s] side once they start restricting it and make it ‘safer,'” Leysen said. “Unless we really make a stand for this and make sure that mainstream media thoroughly covers the issue, the whole thing will be eased in with proper marketing to make sure that most mainstream customers won’t make a big deal out of it. They will only realize what was lost long after it’s gone.”

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute – as long as full credit is given to American Free Press – 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003

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Religion sucks the life out of…

The early Christian church underwrote scientific investigation to more fully understand the glory of God’s creation. But as soon as science started turning up little things that contradicted Biblical Scripture…the relationship turned chilly. Science however just kept on, bit-by-bit, learning the secrets of our world and universe, what makes things tick, how we can do this…or that.

We can glean much information from bones that are millions of years old. We can and have solved the puzzle of where man/woman came from. We can take peoples DNA and tell whether they committed crimes…or not.

We can tell when civilizations started-and-ended. For better or worse we can manipulate the genes of plants and animals, but then we have been doing that for thousands of years, we just called it something different, and now we can do it faster and in ways that should never have been contemplated. We are sending probes to other planets and moons in our solar system. We are getting better and better at solving the puzzle of life…elsewhere. We are coming closer and closer to creating life itself.

We, as the Human Race, have evolved from semi-apes on African savannas, totally at the mercy of bigger, meaner omnivores and carnivores and chaotic weather conditions…to a race of peoples who very stupidly alter our own world; sometimes in non-reversible ways.

We look to the stars, but crap in our own nest.

Religion reluctantly goes along on this trip, all the while gripping and complaining. We’re doing this or that wrong, every second thing we do is sinful, we need to be under religious control…the world is going to end ‘Soon’ All man/womankind is going to hell…you must live your life as an ascetic so you can live on a cloud, plucking a harp and being bored to death for eternity. If you’re not for Christ, you’re for the Devil. Face it; the world of religion sucks the life…out of life.

So many people live by a book written 2000 years ago, that was meant for a totally different purpose and was talking about people and problems and religion of the time. An enterprising group gets together and makes a scam out of it, and bamboozles billions of souls. “Hey, we can make a lifelong career of this”. The common people think if they live right, tithe to the proper sect and espouse the ‘line’, they will live forever. Poor confused, mind controlled, led by the nose people.

They think they have freedom, they just can’t see how controlled they really are. Politicians and world leaders love religion…it makes people very predictable and easy to control.

For latest post go: Here

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Creation, Evolution, Texas State School Board

You gotta hand it to those Texans…they just won’t let religion and schools alone. A Doctor of Urology is running for a position on the school board in District 11 of the Texas State school board (Southwest of Ft. Worth) and he is outspending the opposition by about 12:1

Doctor Barney Maddox, the candidate, has been quoted as saying: “the theory of evolution is a “myth” and a “fairy tale.”

This fits right in with mainline Texas thought. I spent time in Texas a while back and I still vividly remember meeting workmates and people in the community. Their top 5 questions always included…”and what church do you go to?” They had to know this to place you on the social scale, to know if they would continue socializing with you. I could just visualize them getting home and taking out their little score-cards to grade newly introduced people.

It probably won’t be very long before creationism is somehow slipped past the US constitution and taught in their science classes at schools. Well, they’ll get what they deserve. If creation theory gets well established in the state it will head downhill scholastically pretty quickly, as the religious faction behind this is very conservative and anti-science. Once they feel that they are in control and the mainstream in their community…”I pity the fool.” You’d better try to fit in if you live there–and are atheist or non-church going.

To give you an idea of what was going on, I remember leaving the state when my job was done, (3 years) and literally breathing a sigh of relief when crossing over the border into another state. It was like overcast skies suddenly cleared to bright blue. Never been back, don’t ever plan too. Oh yeah, and they still have ‘dry’ counties…no drinking.

Texas is a lot responsible for the negative feelings I have for the conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist movement in the US. If they would ever get in full control of a society like ours, I would have to become a freedom fighter. You can’t reason with them, you just have to leave or fight…well maybe not literal fighting…but really strong political and intellectual counteroffensives.

I have my fingers crossed for them….but, I’m not optimistic.

Big Brother really is Watching

 

Some good sites to witness what is being wrote about our societies changes in the last few years

The beginning of Big Brothers invasion of our right to privacy by president and VP, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. They failed, but George Bush didn’t.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/15440pub19980301.html

How would you like to have to get permission to travel domestic routes on airlines? Well read this, you will get a chill.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6892

Kiss your privacy and freedom to travel goodbye
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1229-35.htm

By far, our own government is a bigger threat to our freedom than any possible menace posed by Al-Qaida.–T.J. Rogers, CEO, Cypress Semiconductor, San Jose, CA.

Another example of the secret world of president Bush
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030317/cole

Big Brother IS watching and listening and probably will be tracking you soon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200604/nsa-surveillance

Watching you in public. You’re a star, smile
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31511

In America you are no longer innocent till proven guilty. You are guilty until proven innocent. No more ‘due process’
http://www.policestate21.com/fascist_agenda.html

“The president’s latest action shows that he is willing to be personally involved in the cover-up of suspected illegal activity,‘ “—Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat

White House cover-ups…they just keep coming and coming
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/07/19/BL2006071900935.html

Sucking up that info 24/7
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4648.shtml

“Virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA compute.” DOUG THOMPSON and TERESA HAMPTON, Capitol Hill Blue

Big Brother: DARPA’s Control Freak Technology
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7603
Man, I’m really depressed now; I think I’ll go to bed.

Peace and sanity to all.

Bill of Rights

Kind of off the subject but I was upset by reading a blog by Keith Olbermann about new government powers, and I did a little research about our “Bill of Rights”

Bill of Rights = First 10 amendments of U.S. Constitution

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Repealed by currant practices of businesses, IRS, Congress, Etc.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Repeal is in the works

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. Not under attack at this time

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Repealed at the request of President G.W.Bush

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Repealed many times by both State and Federal Government

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. Repealed at the request of President G.W. Bush

Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. Somewhat safe

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Repealed at the request of President G.W. Bush

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Human Rights are constantly under attack from all sides and all governments.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Yea, right.

Also noted that the right of habeas corpus, mostly universal in Democratic governments, is now suspended in the US.

Next few years in America are going to be interesting I think.