Category: Evil

Can We Please Give Texas Back to Mexico?

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In response to the spate of cops caught on video abusing and murdering people, Texas lawmakers are looking to ban recording police officers:

Oh, come on. We all know why they want to pass this bill — they want cops to get away with abusing and killing people! (As long as they’re the right people.) The right to record, in addition to being upheld by the appellate courts, is one of the best tools we have to deter police violence, and to see that those who break the law are held accountable — as we just saw last night:

A bill introduced in the Texas House of Representatives would make it illegal for private citizens to record police within 25 feet.

House Bill 2918, introduced by state Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) on Tuesday, would make the offense a misdemeanor. Citizens who are armed would not be permitted to record police activity within 100 feet of an officer, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Only representatives of radio or TV organizations that hold an FCC license, newspapers and magazines would have the right to record police. The legislator disagreed with people on Twitter who said he’s seeking to make all filming of cops illegal.

“My bill … just asks filmers to stand back a little so as not to interfere with law enforcement,” Villalba tweeted.

The bill would go against precedent set in 2011 by an appeals court, which found that citizens are allowed to record police, according to the ACLU.

Seriously.

I cannot see any justification for proposing such a law is because they want to ensure that minorities are in fear for their life.

The Worst Democrat North of the Manson Nixon Line Wins Reelection

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I am referring, of course, to Rahm Emanuel, who won a double digit victory over challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel soundly defeated challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia on Tuesday, capturing a second term in Chicago’s first-ever runoff election and striking a note of humility by thanking voters for “a second term and a second chance.”

The win followed six weeks of a hard-fought, nationally watched second round in which Garcia tried to cast the contest as the latest proxy battle between establishment Democrats and the party’s progressive wing. Emanuel’s overwhelming financial advantage ultimately helped save the mayor as he fought for his political life.

………

With 98 percent of the city’s precincts reporting, Emanuel had 55.7 percent of the unofficial vote to 44.3 percent for Garcia.

It was closer than I expected, but money, and the self defeating bigotry of a significant portion of the Chicago African American community was too big a hill to climb.

I may be a political Little Orphan Annie here, but I do think that Rahm’s mantle has been pierced, and so when the creative accounting that has been obscuring the true state of Chicago’s finances, much of which appear to be in the form of sweetheart deals for his Bankster buddies for complex (and high fee) derivatives of the sort that f%$#ed Greece, collapses, the knives should come out.

At least, I hope that this is what will happen.

I’m bummed.

This Guy is Going to Destroy Israel

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I am, of course, referring to Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who penchant for considering nothing but his own prospects for political power are a clear and present danger for the State of Israel.

The latest case of this is Netanyahu’s willingness to use the most polarizing issue in Israeli politics to help build a coalition, at least if reports that he will kill conversion reform in order to placate right wing parties: (This is Arutz Sheva, so a grain of salt is recommended)

Sources in Shas and United Torah Jewry said Sunday that they had reached an agreement with the Likud on rolling back recently approved rules on conversion. The changes had been designed to remove some of the power over the conversion process from the Chief Rabbinate and install it in the local authorities, where some jurisdictions would presumably be more liberal in their acceptance of converts.

With Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu counting on them to join his new government, MKs from Shas and UTJ are insisting on rolling back the laws on conversion to what they were before Netanyahu’s last government – with the Chief Rabbinate solely responsible for the conversion process, overseeing the entire process without government interference.

In the November change, the government voted to allow municipal rabbis to establish conversion courts, which were to receive administrative and budgetary backing from the state. A rabbinical committee whose makeup is specified in the decision was to oversee the courts, which would exercise their own judgment regarding each conversion.

With several cities already appointing very liberal rabbis as the heads of their committees, the government”s intent was to provide venues for converts to receive approval from authorities more easily than they would have from the Supreme Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem, which until then had sole jurisdiction over conversion. The newest deal restores that situation.

This is arguably the most contentious issue in Jewish Israeli society, and, after years of tumult, they made these baby steps toward sanity.

And now Netanyahu is going to douse this issue with gasoline, and light a match because he is worried about forming a coalition government.

As a secular Zionist, I find this extremely self destructive, but I am not surprised:  Netanyahu ran an explicitly racist campaign.

From the perspective of normative Jewish theology, it was this kind of short sighted bullsh%$ like this that got both temples destroyed.

H/T Failed Messiah.

Election for Chicago Mayor are Tomorrow

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All indications are that he will win handily, though the abnormally high early voter turnout might give Jesus Garcia a slim chance, but polling indicates that it is a very slim chance, even with the endorsement of Garcia by many liberal organizations, including Howard Dean and Democracy for America.

One of the big problems is that the black community appears to be unwilling to vote for a Hispanic candidate, even if this candidate was a strong supporter of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington:

Jesus G. Garcia, candidate for mayor, strode down the sidewalk on Monday evening, trailed by a giddy pack of supporters, volunteers and passers-by. They snapped pictures and chanted his nickname: “Chu-y! Chu-y!”

 One man did not join in. An African-American who wore a knit Blackhawks hat, he glared at Mr. Garcia from the curb.

 “I’m voting,” he said, when asked if he would take part in Tuesday’s election. “But I ain’t voting for no Chuy. I ain’t voting for a Mexican.”

 Pressed to explain, he said he was tired of competing with Latinos for jobs. Then he walked away.

 The scene exposed a fault line in Mr. Garcia’s campaign to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Tuesday’s runoff election. Mr. Garcia’s strategy was to build a coalition of white liberals, blacks and Latinos — angered by Mr. Emanuel’s closing of dozens of schools and supportive of a plan to shift development from its wealthy downtown to poorer neighborhoods.

 But a Chicago Tribune poll released Tuesday showed Mr. Emanuel with a commanding lead. He not only has large margins among white voters, but a nearly two-to-one margin among black voters, 53 percent to 28 percent. Mr. Garcia has not been able to increase his share of the black vote.

 ………

 Mr. Garcia, 58, who has won election to the City Council, the state Senate and the county board of commissioners, has been one of the most prominent Latinos in elected office here, beginning in the 1980s. If elected, he would be the city’s first Latino mayor.

 From the start of his campaign, he spoke of building a multicultural coalition in the spirit of Harold Washington, the city’s first black mayor, on whose campaign Mr. Garcia worked.

 He has reached out to black leaders, collecting endorsements, campaign donations and promises of votes. And he has focused his campaign on concerns Chicagoans share, including improving public education, a higher minimum wage, reducing gun violence and modernizing mass transit.

(emphasis mine)

Once again, we see that when bigotry to drives the vote, hate voters vote against their own interests. (It kind of explains about 95% of the Republican electoral success in the past few decades)

We already have indications that Rahm Emanuel will double down on those policies which led to this runoff in the first place. It’s why one of Rahm’s big donors is squawking that Emanuel should shut down even more public schools:

The Chicago Teachers Union predicts more school closings if Tahm is re-elected. A major campaign contributor said he should have closed 125 schools, not just 50. This donor, Ken Griffin, is a Republican who also has given to Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

………

Rahm Emanuel’s refusal to seriously pursue any meaningful, progressive revenue solutions for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) funding needs will without question lead to further mass school closings in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods if he wins re-election on April 7. As Emanuel’s economic policies prioritize the financial interests of billionaire campaign donors like Ken Griffin and other big business supporters, at the expense of public education in Chicago, the mayor is making a clear choice to drive the district into even further dire financial straits that he will use to justify additional school closings.

Griffin, one of the top contributors to Emanuel’s re-election campaign and the richest man in Illinois, has accused Chicago’s mayor of being “lackluster” for not closing 125 schools instead of 50, and recently reiterated to the New York Times that the number of closings, which disproportionately affected African American and Latino students and their families, “should’ve been 125.” Griffin also has claimed that the top 1 percent of income earners have too little influence in politics, which is seemingly why he has backed Emanuel with more than $1 million in campaign contributions. As Griffin’s influence on City Hall grows, future school closings are inevitable if Emanuel is re-elected.

This is a pretty big tell that Rahm wants to continue to privatize public schools, much like his predecessor privatized parking for pennies on the dollar.

Meanwhile Rahm is aggressively fighting the release of emails between him and his big ticket donors.  (see also here)

Of course, given the history of elections in Illinois, it may all be moot, as the chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners appears to have gotten lucrative lobbying contracts for his lawfirm, and it appears that he has already pulled strings for Rahm Emanuel allies down the ticket:

If Chicago’s first mayoral runoff in history ends up razor close on April 7, the city will be relying on a purportedly independent arbiter to oversee any recount. But that arbiter, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, is chaired by a politically-connected lawyer whose firm has received secret city lobbying contracts from incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. After receiving those contracts, the chairman has already used his power to boost the mayor’s allies against anti-Emanuel challengers in other municipal elections.

Board chairman Langdon Neal was appointed to his position by the Cook County Circuit Court, not by any city official — a structure that is supposed to preserve the board’s independence from candidates for municipal office. However, the laws establishing the election commission do not prohibit Neal from getting contracts from the mayor, whose election he will oversee. How much he has made from those contracts remains a closely guarded secret: the Emanuel administration has denied an open records request for the terms of the deals, refusing to respond to International Business Times within the timeframe mandated by Illinois law.

What’s that Josef Stalin quote again?

I remember, it’s, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Amazon is Evil, Part XXIII

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It turns out that the company which makes minimum wage workers spend nearly an hour unpaid waiting to be searched while leaving their warehouses, is now making those workers sign 18 month non-compete agreements:

Amazon is the country’s largest and most sophisticated online retailer, but it still runs largely on manual labor. Scattered around the country are massive warehouses staffed by workers who spend their days picking objects off shelves and putting them in boxes. During the holiday season, the company calls on a huge reserve army of temporary laborers.

The work is repetitive and physically demanding and can pay several dollars above minimum wage, yet Amazon is requiring these workers — even seasonal ones — to sign strict and far-reaching noncompete agreements. The Amazon contract, obtained by The Verge, requires employees to promise that they will not work at any company where they “directly or indirectly” support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for a year and a half after their brief stints at Amazon end. Of course, the company’s warehouses are the beating heart of Amazon’s online shopping empire, the extraordinary breadth of which has earned it the title of “the Everything Store,” so Amazon appears to be requiring temp workers to foreswear a sizable portion of the global economy in exchange for a several-months-long hourly warehouse gig.

The company has even required its permanent warehouse workers who get laid off to reaffirm their non-compete contracts as a condition of receiving severance pay. When Amazon shut down a massive warehouse in Coffeyville, Kansas, earlier this year, hundreds of employees lost work. One laid-off warehouse worker, who earned just over $12 an hour unloading inbound freight at the Coffeyville facility, showed The Verge a clause in her severance agreement that admonished her to “fully comply” with the noncompetition agreement. This worker wished to remain anonymous because of a non-disclosure agreement she signed with Amazon.

………

Starr, who reviewed the Amazon agreement, said that while attorneys may differ in their interpretations on which services count as having been “supported” by a warehouse employee, the 18-month duration seems “incredibly long,” especially for a temporary job. In the case of a stint lasting three months, the restrictions would stretch six times longer than the actual length of employment, Starr noted in an email. “A restriction like this could only be credible if the type of information the individual learned in a short time could be very damaging to the firms.”

Yet Garden, the Seattle University law professor, notes that such a contract being legally enforceable may in fact be entirely beside the point in a low-wage workplace. “One way to look at this is as a kind of invidious approach to having workers sign a contract that is very likely to be unenforceable,” Garden says. “Knowing that people who have been working for 10 and 11 dollars an hour are not going to be able to hire a lawyer to fight for them later on.“

(emphasis mine)

And this last bit is what these non-competes are all about: preying on the weakest and least knowledgeable of their employees in order to maintain a state of serfdom.

It makes Walmart look like Ralph Nader.

Here’s hoping that there is a lawyer out there who can find a way to use the RICO law against the motherf%$#ers.

By the Way, the Germans Think that the US Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs are Bat-Sh%$ Insane

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I mean seriously nuts, as in Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper raving about how fluoridation is destroying our, “Purity of essence,” in Dr. Strangelove.

You remember that movie.  The world ends in the finale.

The headline in Der Speigel is, “Germany Concerned about Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine:

US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin’s approach. And NATO’s top commander in Europe hasn’t been helping either.

 It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn’t holding perfectly, but it was holding.

 On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again “upped the ante” in eastern Ukraine — with “well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” having been sent to the Donbass. “What is clear,” Breedlove said, “is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day.”

 German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn’t understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn’t the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

 The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove’s numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America’s NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.

 The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove’s comments as “dangerous propaganda.” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove’s comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

 The ‘Super Hawk’

But Breedlove hasn’t been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.

Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel’s diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove’s bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the “super hawk,” whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America’s more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

 ………

 But it is the tone of Breedlove’s announcements that makes Berlin uneasy. False claims and exaggerated accounts, warned a top German official during a recent meeting on Ukraine, have put NATO — and by extension, the entire West — in danger of losing its credibility.

A “Top German Official” just said that Breedlove is lying, and implied strongly that he is doing so to sabotage the negotiations.

………

 At the beginning of the crisis, General Breedlove announced that the Russians had assembled 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and warned that an invasion could take place at any moment. The situation, he said, was “incredibly concerning.” But intelligence officials from NATO member states had already excluded the possibility of a Russian invasion. They believed that neither the composition nor the equipment of the troops was consistent with an imminent invasion.

 The experts contradicted Breedlove’s view in almost every respect. There weren’t 40,000 soldiers on the border, they believed, rather there were much less than 30,000 and perhaps even fewer than 20,000. Furthermore, most of the military equipment had not been brought to the border for a possible invasion, but had already been there prior to the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, there was no evidence of logistical preparation for an invasion, such as a field headquarters.

 Breedlove, though, repeatedly made inexact, contradictory or even flat-out inaccurate statements. On Nov. 18, 2014, he told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there were “regular Russian army units in eastern Ukraine.” One day later, he told the website of the German newsmagazine Stern that they weren’t fighting units, but “mostly trainers and advisors.”

 ………

 Breedlove sees no reason to revise his approach. “I stand by all the public statements I have made during the Ukraine crisis,” he wrote to SPIEGEL in response to a request for a statement accompanied by a list of his controversial claims. He wrote that it was to be expected that assessments of NATO’s intelligence center, which receives information from all 33 alliance members in addition to partner states, doesn’t always match assessments made by individual nations. “It is normal that not everyone agrees with the assessments that I provide,” he wrote.

 He says that NATO’s strategy is to “release clear, accurate and timely information regarding ongoing events.” He also wrote that: “As an alliance based on the fundamental values of freedom and democracy, our response to propaganda cannot be more propaganda. It can only be the truth.” (Read Breedlove’s full statement here.)

Seriously.  His response is nuts.

What’s more is shows that Obama is willing to let people under his own command to “freelance” and sabotage diplomatic efforts.

………

 The government in Berlin is concerned that Breedlove’s statements could harm the West’s credibility. The West can’t counter Russian propaganda with its own propaganda, “rather it must use arguments that are worthy of a constitutional state.” Berlin sources also say that it has become conspicuous that Breedlove’s controversial statements are often made just as a step forward has been made in the difficult negotiations aimed at a political resolution. Berlin sources say that Germany should be able to depend on its allies to support its efforts at peace.

(emphasis mine)

It’s not just me.  The Germans, i.e. “German Sources”, are coming as close as they can to saying that General Breedlove is deliberately sabotaging the negotiations.

Later in the article, a German MP says, ON THE RECORD, “I would prefer that Breedlove’s comments on political questions be intelligent and reserved.” (emphasis mine)

Not, “Intelligent and reserved?”  It does not sound like General Breedlove has the confidence of our NATO Allies.

………

 Although President Obama has decided for the time being to give European diplomacy a chance, hawks like Breedlove or Victoria Nuland are doing what they can to pave the way for weapons deliveries. “We can fight against the Europeans, fight against them rhetorically,” Nuland said during a private meeting of American officials on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of February.

In reporting on the meeting later, the German tabloid Bild reported that Nuland referred to the chancellor’s early February trip to Moscow for talks with Putin as “Merkel’s Moscow stuff.” No wonder, then, that people in Berlin have the impression that important power brokers in Washington are working against the Europeans. Berlin officials have noticed that, following the visit of American politicians or military leaders in Kiev, Ukrainian officials are much more bellicose and optimistic about the Ukrainian military’s ability to win the conflict on the battlefield. “We then have to laboriously bring the Ukrainians back onto the course of negotiations,” said one Berlin official.

 ………

 Nuland has also been open — at least internally — about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said “F%$# the EU” during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus.

 When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe’s resistance to arming Ukraine.

And someone in that delegation was alarmed enough by this that they leaked this to the German press, suggesting that some of Breedlove’s or Nuland’s are appalled at their behavior.

In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one — and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals. Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow’s influence in the region and destabilize Putin’s power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow.

Yes, there are a lot of people in the US foreign policy and military establishments who are continuing to wage war on Russia.

These people are insane.  Russia has 2500-3000 active nuclear weapons.

No wonder you have Mikhail Gorbachev saying that the US war on Russia never ended.

The reason that the Russians see NATO as a belligerent power is because, largely under US prodding, it continues to be a belligerent power with regards to Russia.

More Evidence That Conservative Christianity Has Degenerated Into a Vehicle for Hate

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This is beyond contemptible

Once Again I need to invoke Shelby Spong‘s question, “I have quoted the controversial theologian’s question, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?”

In Tennessee, a Talibaptist cleric has equated equal rights to Satan:

A Tennessee pastor said this week that his church was “not trying to offend anyone” when it put up a sign linking “equal rights” to Satan.

 Members of the community expressed outrage over the weekend after photos of marquee outside the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church were circulated online. The sign read, “Remember, Satan was the first to demand equal rights.”

 “Who was your target audience? Who were you speaking to when you put it up there?” Knoxville resident Rick Staples, asked, according to WBIR. “And when you say you’re asking for your equal rights, who’s asking for their equal rights and who are you comparing to Satan? That was very strong language.”

 Andy Henry said that the church was trying to make a statement about gay rights.

 “It’s clearly a sign that was meant to offend a particular community – the LGBT community. Because of (the church’s) lack of foresight, they ended up offending everybody who had ever fought for equality or civil rights in general,” Henry observed.

But Pastor Tony Greene insisted that everyone misunderstood the message.

 “Our sign referencing Satan demanding his equal rights to ascend into the heavens and be God was simply ‘I’ and all about that individual,” Greene told WATE. “It was not a statement against any one group in particular, you know what about the rights of the unborn babies, the rights of children, the rights of everyone?”

 He added: “My heart breaks in the dividedness of our country.”

No, Rev. Greene is not calling for unity, he is expressing a world view for which faith is indistinguishable from hate.

At its core, this is the same spirituality that we see from Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban.

H/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Microflaccid, Go Cheney Yourself

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In Windows 8, Microsoft implemented UEFI secure boot, which was nominally a system to prevent malicious software from loading a low level, but also has the effect of making it very difficult alternate operating systems.
With Win 8, Microsoft required that the hardware vendors include an option to disable the secure mode, though it was buried in the “BIOS”* setup screen.

It appears that Microsoft will no longer require a switch to disable the lockdown, which means that it could lock out many alternate operating systems:

Those of you with long memories will recall a barrage of complaints in the run up to Windows 8’s launch that concerned the ability to install other operating systems—whether they be older versions of Windows, or alternatives such as Linux or FreeBSD—on hardware that sported a “Designed for Windows 8” logo.

To get that logo, hardware manufacturers had to fulfil a range of requirements for the systems they built, and one of those requirements had people worried. Windows 8 required machines to support a feature called UEFI Secure Boot. Secure Boot protects against malware that interferes with the boot process in order to inject itself into the operating system at a low level. When Secure Boot is enabled, the core components used to boot the machine must have correct cryptographic signatures, and the UEFI firmware verifies this before it lets the machine start. If any files have been tampered with, breaking their signature, the system won’t boot.

This is a desirable security feature, but it has an issue for alternative operating systems: if, for example, you prefer to compile your own operating system, your boot files won’t include a signature that Secure Boot will recognize and authorize, and so you won’t be able to boot your PC.

However, Microsoft’s rules for the Designed for Windows 8 logo included a solution to the problem they would cause: Microsoft also mandated that every system must have a user-accessible switch to turn Secure Boot off, thereby ensuring that computers would be compatible with other operating systems. Microsoft’s rules also required that users be able to add their own signatures and cryptographic certificates to the firmware, so that they could still have the protection that Secure Boot provides, while still having the freedom to compile their own software.

This all seemed to work, and the concerns that Linux and other operating systems would be locked out proved unfounded.

This time, however, they’re not.

At its WinHEC hardware conference in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft talked about the hardware requirements for Windows 10. The precise final specs are not available yet, so all this is somewhat subject to change, but right now, Microsoft says that the switch to allow Secure Boot to be turned off is now optional. Hardware can be Designed for Windows 10 and can offer no way to opt out of the Secure Boot lock down.

If I am a mass market computer maker, there is no upside to allowing a user to disable UEFI secure boot unless you are specifically are targeting power users.

While this may not be a big deal, for anyone who, for example, wants to retask a old or used PC as a firewall, or a print server, etc., it is likely that the choice of operating systems will be severely constrained.

It’s good for the business of PC manufacturers, it means that used machines are less likely to be repurposed or resold, and it is good for Microsoft, because it means that installing many flavors of Linux on an old box becomes problematic.

For the rest of us, it sucks like a thousand Hoovers all going at once.

*Technically, UEFI is not BIOS, it replaces the exclusively 16 bit BIOS, but “BIOS Setup Screen” is a good shorthand for that screen you get when you hold down the F2 key while booting.

This is not Capitalism, it is Parasitism

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Digby quite clearly demonstrates that remuneration for Wall Street finance types are not an artifact of any capitalist imperative, but instead are out and out looting:

With all the changes that have taken place on Wall Street since the financial crisis hit – the mergers, the new regulations and the lawsuits that continue to take a toll on banks’ bottom lines, not to mention the Federal Reserve’s demands that they continue to prove their health via regular “stress tests” – one thing remains unaltered.

It’s the ritual of the annual bonus check handed out to those lucky folks who have survived the job cuts and who continue to endure the Hobbesian life – nasty, brutish and short – on trading desks and in investment banking groups across Wall Street.

Given the banking industry’s reputation for ruthlessness and its emphasis on the “buyer beware” philosophy, you might expect a difficult environment to be reflected in the size of those bonuses.

Well, not so fast. This is Wall Street, after all.

True, Wall Street’s profits aren’t what they used to be. Pretax profits fell 4.2% in 2014 to $16 billion, according to New York’s office of the state comptroller. If you think that sounds like a relatively modest decline, consider that 2014 profits were 33% below 2012 levels, and a whopping 74% below 2009, when Wall Street posted record results as markets zoomed back to life after the crisis and banks profited from ultra-low asset values and interest rates.

But, reflecting the new clout of banks and bankers, bonus payments didn’t dip in response to this decline. Instead, they rose. In fact, it’s the second year in a row that a decline in profitability has been accompanied by a gain in the size of bonus checks. In 2013, to be sure, the contrast was more marked: a 30.1% decline in profitability, and a 15% increase in bonus payments. This year’s gains are more modest: the New York State comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, announced the average bonus would edge up only 2%.

Of course, here’s where the fun and games start on Wall Street. Bonuses don’t come out of a bank’s profits, but out of its revenues. It’s only folks like you and I – and, one would hope, at least some of the investors – who might want to take a look at these numbers and tie them to profits. Because what good is it rewarding employees for bringing revenue through the door if it isn’t profitable revenue?

This year, bonus payouts will amount to a whopping 170% of the profits reported by New York stock exchange member firms – profits that continue to be eroded by legal settlements and regulatory expenses. Back in 2009, that figure was slightly more than 36% of profits, and it has crept steadily higher.

The people working on Wall Street think that they are Galtian superman sitting astride the economy.

They are not.  They are parasites, sucking the marrow from our economy.

In the words of Ayn Rand, these would be moochers and looters, not producers.

H/t to Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo, whose post you should read if you are a Chronicles of Riddick fan.

We Really Need More Effective Anti-SLAPP Laws

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Until recently, the Laundry Workers Center United’s claim to fame was a rabble-rousing protest encampment on Times Square, a self-fashioned “Worker Justice Café” erected by workers as part of a unionization campaign at a Hot and Crusty bakery. Back in 2012, their foolishly brave, Occupy-inspired tactics proved successful in challenging their employer’s power. Now the LWC is facing its own challenge in court, accused of illegally “conspiring” to protest against a boss.

According to a complaint brought by the LWC’s latest campaign target, the Liberato restaurant in the Bronx, the LWC isn’t a humble worker center, agitating on behalf of low-wage immigrant workers, but a racketeering enterprise, waging class warfare against a local business.

The allegations of gangsterism stem from a basic labor dispute: a group of current and former workers have partnered with the LWC to campaign against the restaurant over alleged labor violations and mistreatment. After the conflict escalated and the LWC took legal action last year—with a class action lawsuit and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint now pending—the restaurant responded with a classic New York tactic: the countersuit. Liberato has variously charged the LWC with slander and harassment, as well as violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). This federal law, a curious hybrid of reactionary politics and organized-crime fighting, has historically been used to nab both mob bosses and union organizers. The suit seems to follow a rich tradition of corporations seeking to criminalize collective action as labor’s “extortion” of capital.

So Liberato Restaurant is claiming filing a complaint about wage theft, retaliation, and sexual harassment with  the NLRB, and engaging in actions specifically allowed under the National Labor Relations Act is somehow racketeering.

I hope that the owners and management of this dining establishment end up in jail over this bullsh%$.

Rudolph Giuliani: Making Donald Trump Look Good

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Have you heard Rudy’s latest? He is saying that Barack Obama should be more like Bill Cosby.

He then followed this statement with a noun, a verb, and “9-11”:

Bill Cosby may stand accused of drugging and raping dozens of women, but Rudy Giuliani thinks President Obama could learn a thing or two from the disgraced comedian.

Speaking with talk radio host John Gambling of AM 970 The Answer on Thursday, the former New York City mayor charged that Obama was ignoring “enormous amount of crime” committed by black Americans, citing a recent highly-publicized scuffle at Brooklyn McDonald’s and the shooting of two Ferguson, Missouri police officers early Thursday.

Referring to Cosby’s history of scolding remarks inveighing against black culture, Giuliani said, “I hate to mention it because of what happened afterwards, but [he should be saying] the kinds of stuff Bill Cosby used to say.”

Seriously. This is not The Onion, this is real.

Rudolph Giuliani has based his entire political career on hating on Black people and other minorities.

Can we call him a bigoted nut-job yet?

Not This Sh%$ Again

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Once again, we have a Hitler of the week selected by the US state security apparatus.

This week, it is Venezuela:

The United States declared Venezuela a national security threat on Monday and ordered sanctions against seven officials from the oil-rich country in the worst bilateral diplomatic dispute since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013.

 U.S. President Barack Obama signed and issued the executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target Venezuela’s energy sector or broader economy. But the move stokes tensions between Washington and Caracas just as U.S. relations with Cuba, a longtime U.S. foe in Latin America and key ally to Venezuela, are set to be normalized.

 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced the sanctions as an attempt to topple his government. At the end of a thundering two-hour speech, Maduro said he would seek decree powers to counter the “imperialist” threat, and appointed one of the sanctioned officials as the new interior minister.

 Declaring any country a threat to national security is the first step in starting a U.S. sanctions program. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, U.S. officials said.

 The White House said the order targeted people whose actions undermined democratic processes or institutions, had committed acts of violence or abuse of human rights, were involved in prohibiting or penalizing freedom of expression, or were government officials involved in public corruption.

 “Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of U.S. financial systems,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

A security threat?!?!!?  Seriously?

Venezuela is a mess, and the “Bolivarian Revolution” is arguably the 2nd worst possible potential rulers for the oil rich nation, but they are no more a security threat to the United States than is my cat Meatball.

This Monroe Doctrinesque bullsh%$, where the US seems to see meddling in regime change in the Western Hemisphere to be a God given birthright, needs to stop.

I think that it is clear that the Maduro government won’t be around for a particularly long time, they do not appear to be able to manage their way a paper bag, unless pressure by the State Department, CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, etc. for regime change serves to reinforce their grip on power as it has in Cuba.

And When the Democrats Get Back into Power, They Won’t Reverse This

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Koch sucking Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, just signed so called right to work legislation:

For decades, states across the South, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains enacted policies that prevented organized labor from forcing all workers to pay union dues or fees. But the industrial Midwest resisted.

Those days are gone. After a wave of Republican victories across the region in 2010, Indiana and then Michigan enacted so-called right-to-work laws that supporters said strengthened those states economically, but that labor leaders asserted left behind a trail of weakened unions.

Now it is Wisconsin’s turn. On Monday, Gov. Scott Walker — who in 2011 succeeded in slashing collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers — signed a bill that makes his state the 25th to adopt the policy and has given new momentum to the business-led movement, its supporters say.
“This freedom-to-work legislation will give workers the freedom to choose whether or not they want to join a union, and employers another compelling reason to consider expanding or moving their business to Wisconsin,” Mr. Walker said.

Seeing as how well Walker’s Koch Brothers inspired agenda has worked in Wisconsin (Hint: not at all, compare it to Minnesota, which has taken pretty much the opposite policies), we should not expect to see much job growth in Wisconsin relative to its neighbors.

The obvious question here though is what happens when the Democrats take control of the state house and governor’s mansion again?

If the past is precis, there will be no repeal.

In both the recall campaign, and in Walker’s reelection campaign, the Democratic candidates eschewed calling for a repeal of his law stripping state workers of union rights, so, at least until the pathetic Wisconsin state Democratic party establishment can be put out of its misery, I would expect that both these laws will stay in place.

Basically, Wisconsin Democrats continue to believe that portraying themselves as non or post partisan is a winning electoral strategy, even though it is clear that the modern Republican party has, to quote Digby, “Gone insane and that every incentive and structural political edifice out there made it impossible for them not to be insane.”

Running on PPUS (Post Partisan Unity Schtick) is the same as running on nothing, and the voters will almost always choose a bad something over nothing.

Emmanueldämmerung* in Progress

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We have always know that Rahm Emanuel is a bully, who kisses up to his superiors and kicks down at his subordinates, or for that matter anyone he sees as unimportant, but this report seems to indicate that the long time Obama ally is seriously losing his sh%$:

They say old Rahm Emanuel came out last night—or maybe it was the real one hiding in plain sight all the time: a sneering, aggressive pol who went “nose-to-nose” with a mental-health advocate demanding, “You’re gonna respect me!”

The alleged exchange took place off-camera between Chicago’s mayor and Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a member of Mental Health Movement, a group that has been fighting the mayor over the closure of six mental health clinics across the city. Behind a door that separated the mayor from a roomful of constituents at a campaign stop in the Wicker Park neighborhood, Ginsberg-Jaeckle says, he got Rahmbo’d.

 “This is the Real Rahm,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle wrote on Facebook. “Calm and collected in public, raging angry and self-defensive behind closed doors.”

 But Emanuel’s campaign, while not directly refuting the mayor’s alleged call for respect, said the exchange was more cordial than Ginsberg-Jaeckle’s version of events. The mayor’s office has reached out Ginsberg-Jaeckle and Delgado to address their concerns, campaign spokesman Steve Mayberry said in a statement.

“The mayor was eager to get to the substance of the residents’ concerns,” Mayberry said via email. “After respectfully listening to the residents, he asked that they respectfully listen to his point of view. As a result, the meeting ended cordially and the mayor is working with health officials to address the residents’ needs.”


Debbie Delgado, another member of the group, interrupted Emanuel, prompting the behind-closed-doors altercation.

“She told of losing her son to gun violence,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle wrote. “She told [Emanuel] how her other son was holding him as he died. She told about how the city’s Northwest Mental Health Clinic in Logan Square saved their lives, helped her and her son deal with the PTSD and depression. Then she asked why he took that clinic away from her.”

 Rahm said he would speak with the pair, and Ginsberg-Jaeckle said they then left the room for a private conversation. That’s when Emanuel allegedly shouted: “You’re gonna respect me!”

 The mayor’s office wouldn’t address the supposed angry exchange.

 “Since it was a non-city event there were no city people there to witness it,” said Chloe Rasmas, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office.

 Rahm said he would speak with the pair, and Ginsberg-Jaeckle said they then left the room for a private conversation. That’s when Emanuel allegedly shouted: “You’re gonna respect me!”

 ………

 “We delivered 10,000 letters to the mayor’s office in October 2012. They didn’t respond. So, we started sending one email a week. No response. We held forums and protests. The day before a vote on the budget we did a sit-in outside the mayor’s office, and they forced us out by cutting off any access bathrooms,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle said, running down years’ worth of attempts to talk with the mayor.

 “I could go play by play, but long story short we could not get through to this man. Finally, the extreme we reached was crashing his events.”

 That’s what they did Wednesday night, not expecting much other than to be escorted out. Locke said Rahm told police to hold off when Ginsberg-Jaeckle and Delgado rose from their front-row chairs to confront the mayor. It was all cordial, until the trio left the room.

Demanding respect at the top of his voice.

Respect should not be demanded, it should be earned.

Why do I get the sense that Rahm Emanuel is suffering from a really bad case of “Middle Child Syndrome”?

In either case, I hope that the people of Chicago realize that they are dealing with a guy for whom a difficult reelection campaign is likely to make him an even worse mayor than he already is.

I would also one of his supporters, Republican Senator Mark Kirk, is blowing the racist dog whistle by invoking Detroit, while Republican Governor Bruce Rauner is leaning on begging 3rd place mayoral candidate Willie Wilson to endorse Rahm as well.

They wouldn’t be endorsing who is tied in the minds of their base to the “Kenyan Muslim Atheist Radical” Barack Obama unless they were pretty firmly on the same side, and they were worried about his chances.

I am so hoping that he loses the April 7 contest.

*I cannot claim credit for this bon mot. It was coined by Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism.

Not Just Ferguson

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In Wittier, California, police officers have sued over retaliation for reporting illegal quotas:

Six Whittier police officers are suing the city, saying they faced retaliation when they complained and refused to meet alleged ticket and arrest quotas.

Officers Jim Azpilicueta, Anthony Gonzalez, Mike Rosario, Nancy Ogle, Steve Johnson and Cpl. Joseph Rivera say they spoke out against the quotas, which they claim were imposed by the Whittier Police Department in 2008, according to a suit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The officers said their “careers have been materially and adversely affected, and irreparably harmed” by the city.

City Manager Jim Collier and Whittier police spokesman Officer John Scoggins declined to comment and said they had not seen the lawsuit.

“The lawsuit is unfortunate and the city will determine the best course of action once an analysis of the lawsuit is completed,” Collier said.

The officers say the alleged ticket and arrest quotas continue to this day.

The alleged retaliation started after the officers said they complained to their supervisors and the police department’s Internal Affairs Division, the suit claims.

After complaining about quotas, the officers faced a series of disciplinary actions including counseling sessions, unwarranted transfers, increased scrutiny and disparaging comments, the lawsuit said.

………

Imposing arrest and ticket quotas on police officers violates California Vehicle Codes section 41600. The codes makes it illegal for any state or local agency to force officers to meet a certain number of citations or arrests for promotion or disciplinary purposes.

Here’s a thought for initiative petition crazy California:  Someone start collecting signatures for a ballot measure that takes all the proceeds from these sort of offenses, and transfers it to a scholarship program for state schools.

Once municipalities no longer from pulling this sh%$, they will stop pulling this sh%$.

This is the Least Surprising News Since ……… Ever

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The US Department of Justice has determined that the entire justice system of Ferguson, Missouri discriminates against minorities:

Ferguson, Mo., is a third white, but the crime statistics compiled in the city over the past two years seemed to suggest that only black people were breaking the law. They accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests.

The racial disparity in those statistics was so stark that the Justice Department has concluded in a report scheduled for release on Wednesday that there was only one explanation: The Ferguson Police Department was routinely violating the constitutional rights of its black residents.

The report, based on a six-month investigation, provides a glimpse into the roots of the racial tensions that boiled over in Ferguson last summer after a black teenager, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by a white police officer, making it a worldwide flash point in the debate over race and policing in America. It describes a city where the police used force almost exclusively on blacks and regularly stopped people without probable cause. Racial bias is so ingrained, the report said, that Ferguson officials circulated racist jokes on their government email accounts.

I’m not sure what a final resolution to this should be, but as a start, I would suggest that all fines and court costs in the municipality be placed under the control of a special master and not allowed to accrue to the town treasury.

The town will continue to discriminate so long as it makes a profit from doing so.

People should not hate their own police, but it is the God given right of any free citizen to hate the tax collector, even though it is an essential function.

By turning the Ferguson courts and police into a revenue source it creates a toxic environment.

The people hate the cops. 

The cops hate them back, and come to believe that they are surrounded by the enemy, and not familiar citizens.

Then you get a kid shot and left to lie in the street for hours in plain view as a warning to the community.

I’d also like to see some criminal prosecutions, perhaps under RICO, against those who created, promulgated, and maintained such a system.

Quote of the Day

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As anti-worker as Reagan was, however, he continued to praise unions and their vital contribution to America. Ronald Reagan would be unable to win a Republican primary in any state in 2015 because he supported the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. That is how extreme his Party has become.

—William K. Black On Scott Walkers batsh%$ insane statements comparing labor unions and ISIS.

I think that Ronald Reagan was determined to muzzle labor unions, and condemn them to irrelevancy, but he felt the need from a political perspective to throw some empty rhetorical flourishes their way even as he knifed them in the back.

These days, you cannot win a primary campaign in the Republican party doing the same.  The demand for “red meat”is too strong.

Why Scott Walker Said Something Batsh%$ Insane………

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At CPAC, Scott Walker implied that union activists and the terrorist group ISIS are equivalent:

At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker drew a comparison between Islamic State militants and the Wisconsin union protesters with whom he has repeatedly clashed since 2011.

In response to a question about how he would deal with global threats such as the one posed by ISIS, Walker drew from his personal experience.

“If I can take on a 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” Walker said on the CPAC stage, after giving a longer answer about how he would handle ISIS if he were the president.

Rather unsurprisingly, Democratic firebrand Senator condemned the comments.

Rather more surprising is the fact that he was condemned on the (web) pages of the reactionary mouthpiece The National Review:

But former Texas Gov. Rick Perry quickly criticized Walker’s remarks. And NRO’s Jim Geraghty was appalled:

That is a terrible response. First, taking on a bunch of protesters is not comparably difficult to taking on a Caliphate with sympathizers and terrorists around the globe, and saying so suggests Walker doesn’t quite understand the complexity of the challenge from ISIS and its allied groups.

Secondly, it is insulting to the protesters, a group I take no pleasure in defending. The protesters in Wisconsin, so furiously angry over Walker’s reforms and disruptive to the procedures of passing laws, earned plenty of legitimate criticism. But they’re not ISIS. They’re not beheading innocent people. They’re Americans, and as much as we may find their ideas, worldview, and perspective spectacularly wrongheaded, they don’t deserve to be compared to murderous terrorists.

No one should be shocked by Walker’s statement.  Statements like this are a required part of running for office as a Republican, particularly for Presidential candidates.

There is a cultural imperative among Republicans to troll liberals/Democrats.

When a Republican candidate says something that makes non-Republican heads explode, it is seen as an independent good by the base.

The issue these days is that each time a Republican tries to make liberal heads explode, the bar keeps getting moved further down the road toward “to crazy even for Republicans”, and these days the line is pretty narrow.

It’s stupid, it’s immature, and it is exceedingly juvenile, but that is today’s Republican party in a nut shell.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen, Eh?

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Up in the Great White North, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has determined anti-fossile fuel activists are a terrorism threats:

The RCMP has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation.

In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.

“There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” concludes the report which is stamped “protected/Canadian eyes only” and is dated Jan. 24, 2014. The report was obtained by Greenpeace.

“If violent environmental extremists engage in unlawful activity, it jeopardizes the health and safety of its participants, the general public and the natural environment.”

The government has tabled Bill C-51, which provides greater power to the security agencies to collect information on and disrupt the activities of suspected terrorist groups. While Prime Minister Stephen Harper has identified the threat as violent extremists motivated by radical Islamic views, the legislation would also expand the ability of government agencies to infiltrate environmental groups on the suspicion that they are promoting civil disobedience or other criminal acts to oppose resource projects.

It’s pretty clear that the RCMP report was done at the instigation of the government, not the other way around.

It’s also pretty clear that Harper is a nasty piece of work, at least by Canadian standards.