Knowing is Not Enough

by Nomad

You Say You Want A Revolution? More Evidence Trump is Pranking the GOP

by Nomad

It took me a long time to take Donald Trump seriously. Just about the time, I became convinced he was a genuine candidate, he goes and opens new doubts.

Believe it or Not?

After quite a bit of deliberation on the subject, I was finally persuaded that Donald Trump was actually a serious candidate. 
It wasn't easy to accept this. 

Just by his appearance alone, he cuts a somewhat comical figure. That's not his fault, okay. I get it. Sometimes bad hair days can last decades.

Whatever you think about him personally, you have to admit, he makes his liabilities work to his advantage. Being an unorthodox candidate- not carefully groomed by handlers or by professional stylists- is doubtless one of his main selling points. 

He is who he is and he doesn't give a frick what other people think. He owes his position to nobody but his people. Only a billionaire can think like that nowadays.

There's a hitch, however.

That might work for a celebrity or a private citizen. But as a candidate for the highest office in the nation, most voters require a tad more than what Trump is selling. 

How Anti-Terrorism Software Has Become a Threat to Human Rights and Democracy

by Nomad

One hacker's explosive information leak revealed the dark side of surveillance software and companies that sell them.  It sends a warning about authoritarian regimes using anti-terrorism software to target opposition and human right activists.  

In early July last year, a hacker who went by the name of Phineas Fisher claimed responsibility for an astounding information dump. 

The Hacking Team Dump

In all,  500 GB of client files, contracts, financial documents, and internal emails of Milan-based surveillance company called Hacking Team were made available to the public. 

The company sells sophisticated computer surveillance software to countries around the world, some nations with very doubtful human rights records.

According to one source:

It’s unclear exactly how much the hackers got their hands on, but judging from the size of the files, it’s certainly a large collection of internal files. A source who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the issue, told me that based on the file names and folders in the leak, the hackers who hit Hacking Team "got everything."

So basically, a hacker hacked the Hacking Team. In doing so, he walked away with vital and incriminating information including emails between employees, a list of customers, which included the FBI. 

He or she also managed to find the source code of the surveillance software itself. The whole kit and caboodle.

Michigan Laws and the Less-Discussed Sins of Sodom

by Nomad

Despite a host of serious problems in the state, the minds of the Republicans in the Michigan Senate were focused on passing a dubious anti-sodomy law. But what is the truth behind the Biblical story of Sodom? Who are the real Sodomites?

Michigan and SB219

With so many things going wrong in that state, you'd think Michigan legislators would have their hands full. You'd think they would have no problem finding serious issues to tackle. 

However, you'd be wildly incorrect.  

Last week, legislators decided that it was much more concerned with the sex practices of its citizens than with those boring issues. The state Senate passed SB 219 that, as one critic says, "effectively reaffirms the state's unconstitutional law making sodomy a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison."
If the person is already a sex offender, violations are punishable by life in prison. 

Michigan is one of more than a dozen states that still have sodomy bans on the books, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas declaring them unconstitutional.

The Court's decision in the Texas case ruled that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment. As Wikipedia explains: 

Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants.

Nobody told the Michigan legislators, it seems.  

While most people see this as primarily directed at gay couples, the laws criminalizing oral and anal sex can apply to both same-sex or different-sex couples. 

   

This law was deceptively attached to laws protecting animals from abuse. It should be mentioned that one progressive blog, Eclectablog, claims that this isn't an anti-sodomy law at all but a law designed to "prohibit convicted animal abusers from adopting another animal for five years." In that case, it is merely a badly-written law. Here's the sentence that has raised objections:

A person who commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature either with mankind or with any animal IS guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment for. not more than 15 years

The rather old-fashioned phrase, "the abominable and detestable crime against nature" in this context would certainly be a sexual crime presumably with an animal. In short, the crime of bestiality.

However, lawmakers inexplicably added the phrase "either with mankind or animal" which then changes the meaning to unnatural sexual acts, the classic definition of sodomy. If the state had repealed its old sodomy laws, it would be much easier to dismiss this as just a poorly-written law.

Since 2014, the Republicans in Michigan have held a strong majority in the State House and Senate. They can do whatever they want without much opposition.
Pandering to the Christian Right has now, critics say, devolved into enforcing baby-making sexual practices at a state level. Strictly speaking, every other form of sex could be considered "unnatural." (Even sex using contraceptive is technically unnatural.)

But if sodomy is the thing that really captures the imagination of the Michigan Republicans, then perhaps they should delve a little deeper in the story of the Sodomites and why, according to the Bible, God decided to destroy them.