iFranky

In times when blogging more and more seems to have become a media outlet¹, it always is nice to see what drove both the internet and blogging initially. Duncan Riley’s words hit home for everyone who was already there years ago and did not just jump on the _online bandwagon_ in the last years²:

KeegsMom
it was a scenario description, but I take your point, getting to even a couple of thousand a month is hard going. If you want to ping me on email duncan at nichenet.com.au I’d be happy to take a look at what you’re currently doing and share some personalized advice if you like. Always happy to help. [Emphasis mine]

Yes, that is right. Initially the internet was built upon helping each other. Whether it was by sharing links to awesome sites/content or by sharing tips and tricks.

And I remember plenty of moments when I hit up people like Duncan³ or Matt Craven and if they were online, within minutes, you’d have a Skype⁴ session with them.

Sometimes I wish the _next big thing_ would start and it would be a mix of the _old garde_ again. Back to the old style, the time when everyone helped each other out.
Hats off Duncan for still keeping up the old spirit!

1. Especially for the MSM [↩]
2. Although I was a latecomer to blogging, I used to spend all my time helping people on Usenet and then managing Windows Communities. *nuke Times for those who remember that type of CMS ;-) [↩]
3. Who already wrote at TC [↩]
4. Or AIM(link) chat for the old skool ones among us [↩]

Warning : Political topic, click away if I’m going against any personal dogma about blogging and politics.

Ever since Ian Parker-Joseph, leader of the UK Libertarian Party commented on the 1984 entry, I have been reading about Libertarians in the UK and the Libertarian Party ¹.

Having lived in Germany, but also as a qualified police agent in my home country, the 1984-issue is a sensible one for me, but also an issue of mixed feelings.
I actually do have NO problems with the gouvernment collecting my data. Get over it, but there’s no issue with a compulsory ID card, nor is there with handing over all my internet logs to the authorities. The problem only arises when this huge data collection can create paranoia, when there is no law protecting the privacy of citizens.

I must admit that when I came to the UK, the thought of being almost 24/7 on CCTV was a scary one, but soon I got used to this new form of Big Brother spying upon me. Especially since I had just left Germany, a country where it is NOT allowed to log IP addresses. The same country where a law regulates that internet providers log the login to the internet, emails and VOIP calls. This combined with a stringent set of laws on regulating the protection of personal data. The UK is not alone, Big Brother is watching you all over, in any country, and I seriously doubt that most so-called privacy anal-retentists browse online anonymously or avoid cloud based services such as GMail and Google Web History² and consequently block cookies from third parties such as ad providers, statistics programs and many more. Probably most of them have at least one credit card, and maybe even participate in several bonus card systems in their favourite shops, thus allowing everyone and their neighbours to analyse their spending patterns.

Your privacy is an illusion³. I’m drifting. Back to the Libertarians.

Wikipedia offers, via the Internet Encyclopedia of Psychology, following definition of Libertarianism:

Libertarians are committed to the belief that individuals, and not states or groups of any other kind, are both ontologically and normatively primary; that individuals have rights against certain kinds of forcible interference on the part of others; that liberty, understood as non-interference, is the only thing that can be legitimately demanded of others as a matter of legal or political right; that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty; that social order is not at odds with but develops out of individual liberty; that the only proper use of coercion is defensive or to rectify an error; that governments are bound by essentially the same moral principles as individuals; and that most existing and historical governments have acted improperly insofar as they have utilized coercion for plunder, aggression, redistribution, and other purposes beyond the protection of individual liberty.

Noble words, as is the case with almost any ideology. The principle of liberty has been forgotten in most parts of our world and has become the same illusion that your privacy is. A visit to the UK Libertarian’s website makes the ideology sound even better:

At long last there is another way forwards for our country; one which puts you, rather than the corrupt politicians at Westminster, firmly in charge. Our policies provide real-world solutions to the real-world challenges that we all face today, and do so whilst putting government and the State back in their rightful place as the servants, rather than the masters, of us all.

Who would not immediately want to become a member of this Party?
When you start reading their manifesto, feelings might chance be reinforced even more, depending on what your favourite movie is. Did you take the Red Pill and do you believe in The Matrix?

If you answered both questions with Yes go now and apply for your membership.

If you also are a firm believer in the morals⁴ of the movie Fight Club, you will have even more sympathy for the LPUK:

We will amend the Firearms Acts to repeal the pistol ban, which has both completely failed to reduce armed crime and crippled our country’s ability to compete in the pistol shooting events in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, while depriving law-abiding householders of the ability to defend their homes with one of the most suitable weapons available. [From the LPUK Manifesto, topic Law and Order]

Things become interesting here, especially when we hit over to The Devil’s Kitchen, a funny and well-written thought-provoking blog, started by one of the LPUK co-founders⁵ (Warning: common offensive language). Actually a political blog right down my alley.

Today’s entry seems to fit the provoking, but also _scary_ mentality of the LPUK:

We might instead say that if we impose systems under which children are only forcibly separated from their parents under the very worst of circumstances, and under which parents are not always and unequivocally treated as evil abusers if they fail to live up to ideal standards of parenting, then sometimes this will mean that children will suffer horribly and die - but that it will avoid a far larger number of children suffering horribly by being taken into council care without good cause.

And fuck, if we’re libertarians rather than just blathering cunts, we might say that this is the *right thing to fucking do*.

A very powerful but dangerous message, prone to be understood wrongly. Ad rem and also bordering the style of propaganda which always will be listened to when countries experience negative economic downturns. The same style of propaganda alike style, which made the secessionist Vlaams Blok popular in the Belgian 1991 elections. The style of propaganda which could lead to a bump in popularity, because in a country driven by binge drinking a petty crime, isn’t it true that everyone has the right to defend themselves? And we admit:

Allowing people to carry firearms certainly will lead to the death of several people on the compulsory Friday after work binge drink, but at least the victims will have had the opportunity to shoot back.⁶

Libertarians of the LPUK, let’s rehearse the populist blogging style once more please.

The ‘Harsh’ Facts

• I like thought provoking, harsh and highly aggressive opinions if based on factual truths.
• I must admit that The Devil’s Kitchen could quickly become my favourite UK blog
• DK has the potential to bring the highly offensive⁷ blogger madbull back.
• I consider myself a Libertarian.
• I like to provoke and select quotes just to ridiculize things. Fisking?

1. This is how I discovered the awesome Philosophy of Liberty animation. [↩]
2. Chances that most users of the Google Toolbar actually know that their queries are saved are rather SLIM. [↩]
3. Unless you are consequent [↩]
4. I use this term loosely [↩]
5. Multi-authored nowadays [↩]
6. Following quote should be added here, but I do not condone the LPUK stance on firearms: And fuck, if we’re libertarians rather than just blathering cunts, we might say that this is the *right thing to fucking do* [↩]
7. As once said by Libertarian Kn@ppster [↩]

When reading The Blog Herald today¹, I was struck by the article A Hardcore Spanking, Web 2.0 Style. In the article Andrew G.R.² discusses how he became the victim of several platforms, for not reading the ToS. And hits at the same time out at being an early adopter.

But I do not see a link between suffering the bane of being an early adopter and getting banned for not respecting the rules, guidelines.
Early adopterism has been the topic on this blog before, and even nowadays, in my days of blogging retirement, I continue to be an avid tester of applications and spam my colleagues with any new service I discover and like. Around 3% of the stuff I test. My Holy Shit Tools.

And sometimes, I realize I better had waited before switching, before implementing a new, beta service in my daily workflow, as the Chyrp experience has shown me once more.

Never though have I been banned from a site, been confronted with a restriction other than my own stupidity. Not because I was an early adopter.
Honestly, I would be happy if Twitter made the decision for me that following more than 2000 tweeps is insane is. Then again, probably I am not interested enough in everyone’s lifestream.

1. Even after my problogging past, I still stay interested and follow the fewest blogs about blogging. I still read several Splashpress Media blogs. [↩]
2. Disclosure: I have blogged on several blogs Andrew blogs on now and think he is a fun and snarky writer. [↩]

Via International Society for Individual Liberty.

The UK government is planning to track everything you do on-line and on the phone. Even if you have done nothing wrong, every e-mail you send, every website you visit, every text you send and every call you make will be tracked, logged, categorized and stored for years.

Through an innocuous sounding “Intercept Modernisation Programme”, the government wants telephone and internet companies to send all their logs to a centralized system where it will be made accessible to law enforcement and military agencies at will.

Read more about the threat here, here and here.

Now that your car numberplate is scanned daily and CCTV tracks you up to 300 times per day, the government wants to invade the final bastion of privacy – the sanctity of your own home. In an effort that mimics George Orwell’s dystopian book 1984, it now wants to log all electronic communication between everyone.

Neither terrorism nor crime poses a threat big enough to warrant such sinister intrusion into the daily lives of innocent citizens. While targeted monitoring of potential criminals can be justified in many cases, instantly turning 61 million citizens into suspects is not British, not moral and not befitting for a democracy no matter the threat. Irrespective of the moral implications of this proposed tracking, do you really trust the government to keep all this information secure? How many times have we heard about supposed private information being dropped or intentionally leaked in the last year alone?

We do not want to live in a society where innocent people have to worry about what they say, what they do and how they act. If the Intercept Modernisation Programme, or any programme like it, goes through, it will kill the democracy it is trying to preserve. Even the Information Commisioner, Richard Thomas, has described this as a “step too far“.

Please sign the petition against these plans on the Prime Minister’s website.

If you feel strongly about this, please consider forwarding this information to your friends or tell them about the threat in some other way.

Thank you.

Via Michael Heilemann.