Blackmoor Vituperative

I recall where I was when the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed. Someone in a cubicle next to mine received an email that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Buildings. I thought it was yet another ridiculous email chain-letter forwarded by the same sort of gullible people who pass on dire warnings of syringes in telephone booths and rat urine on soda cans, and I told them so with a sneer (I am sometimes not as kind as I would like to be: I was even less so back then).

But more and more people heard this news, and then someone said that it was on the television in the break room. Still skeptical, I went and watched with everyone else.

I was flabbergasted when it was on the news in the break room, live — and then a second plane slammed into the other World Trade Center building, right in front of me. Even then, I thought it had to be a hoax or publicity stunt of some kind. I mean, how could two planes possibly hit skyscrapers in the same city on the same day? It’s inconceivable.

But it was true, of course, as we all learned over the following days and weeks.

The worst was yet to come, of course: the massive, brutal insult to American travelers known as the TSA, and the various violations of our basic human rights in the name of keeping us “safe”. Buildings can be rebuilt, and while the death toll from the airplane crashes was tragic, that many people die on our highways every month. The plane crashes may have been the work of psychotic foreigners, but the real damage to the USA happened afterward, and was perpetrated by Americans. I will probably not live long enough to see that damage undone.

Europe has its issues. Thankfully, bending their citizens over for the benefit of the media robber barons and the Digital Rights Mafia does not appear to be one of them.

Today 377 members of the European Parliament adopted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in which they demand greater transparency, assert that ISPs should not up end being liable for data sent through their networks, and say that ACTA “should not force limitations upon judicial due process or weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy.”

[…]

“Written Declaration 12 is a strong political signal sent by the EP to the Commission that ACTA is not tolerable as a way of bypassing democratic processes. Legislation related to Internet, freedom of speech and privacy cannot be negotiated in secrecy under the direct influence of entertainment industry lobbies,” said spokesperson Jérémie Zimmermann. “Full rejection of ACTA is the only option.”

(from Ars Technica, European Parliament passes anti-ACTA declaration)

The Free Software Foundation has a new educational campaign, and in a shift from previous efforts, it is more openly negative about the costs and morality (or lack thereof) of closed-source software. This is the Windows 7 Sins campaign, and it looks like the mainstream media might actually be picking up on it (if only to heckle).

Personally, I think this is an interesting effort, and I hope that it achieves positive results. I define “positive results” as an increase in the number of people who convert to Linux (what the FSF stubbornly persists in calling “GNU/Linux”), and a decrease in the number of people who continue to blindly hand Microsoft their money.