It pisses me the fuck off. Whenever there is the slightest chance for an actual populist movement to arise in this country and have a hope in hell of connecting with the masses the bastions of “liberal” ideological purity rear up and do their fucking best to drive people away from it. Case in point, this idiotic piece of drivel from Greg Laden.

For those who don’t know him, Laden is “…an anthropologist and science communicator who can never decide which is more important: nuance or context.” Greg is also a fucking ignoramus who is fundamentally incapable of admitting when he is wrong. In the afore-linked post on Laden’s blog, hosted on freethoughtblogs.com Laden takes exception at a photo of a woman attending one of the OccupyINSERTCITYHERE events. I can’t find any attribution information on the picture on Laden’s blog so I’m not going to re-post it here — but the picture (which, in the interests of nuance, Laden has titled “fuckedupwhitelady.jpg”) depicts a woman of indeterminate age and means, holding an infant and a sign. The sign reads:

• Not a hippy
• Not a freak
• Not an anarchist
• Not a mob
• Not a punk
• Not vague
• Not a left-wing nutjob

Just a mom here for a better world for my kids

Now, most rational people would read that and see it for what it almost certainly is — a rebuke of the assholes in the mainstream media who have done everything in their power to dismiss the Occupy/99% movement as nothing more than the vague wining of a mob of left-wing hippy anarchist punk freaks. But Laden, oh mighty communicator of science, sees though this devil-woman’s ruse. The asshat writeth:

The sign indicates that you are complaining about the world you made, presumptive middle class straight white lady with the presumably genderonormative hat on her baby. And you seen to openly disdain all those who have been telling you this all along (and thus by the exclusionary list you’ve given me I’m guessing as to whom you are). I’m glad if you’ve suddenly decided to become aware and enlightened. But judging just from this sign, you still need to get a clue.

Mon Dieu what amazing powers of intuition Laden has. To discern all that from a simple photo. Of course, Laden claims that he can make such bold claims based on the few insignificant things that the woman claims not to be. I’ve just tried about a dozen ways of writing exactly how stupid and exclusionary that claim is but my fingers cramp every time I attempt it.

What really infuriates me about this piece of shit though is not Laden’s woeful attempt at mentalism, nor is it the way that he and his army of sycophants refuse to even consider the possibility that they’re mistaken. No, what sends me into a boiling rage is Laden and company’s presumption to dictate the proper membership of the Occupy/99% movement.

Let’s be generous and assume for a moment that Laden is absolutely correct in his assumptions. Let’s go with this woman being the very picture of so-called middle-America. She’s an SUV driving, Wal-Mart shopping, faggot hating, Midwesterner. Fuck, let’s even say she’s a Mormon.

So the fuck what?

Last time I checked, the ethos of the 99% movement was contained in its fucking name. It’s the 99% of us being crushed under the boot-heel of the 1% that control our financial system. It’s not the 99%-as-long-as-you-conform-to-our-oh-so-liberal-criteria. As much as I personally dislike the hypothetical woman I made up in the previous paragraph, I would welcome her with open arms into the 99% movement if it could help her see that the real enemy isn’t the fags, darkies and godless but the assholes hoarding the money.

So I’m sorry Greg, you don’t get to set the criteria here. You can take your offense at someone choosing to participate who doesn’t self-identify in the way that you want her to and shove it up your fucking ass. You’re a pox on liberalism and a wretched moron to boot.

This story didn’t get much press yesterday — probably because the nerdlingers were too a’flutter over the Supreme Court decision forbidding California from banning the sale of “violent” videogames to minors — but there was actually a second, and far more important SCOTUS decision handed down yesterday.

In an utterly unsurprising, but still insanely infuriating, 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down part of Arizona’s public campaign finance law. Crooks and Liars has a good write-up of the decision, but the gist of it is that the part of the law that provided additional public funds to candidates who are being massively outspent by corporate funding was deemed unconstitutional.

Again, it’s completely unsurprising that the “logic” used by the Robert’s led majority was that public funds infringe on the “free speech” of corporations. I honestly would not be shocked to see these fuck-heads declare that corporations can just flat-out buy elected officials at auction.

Of course it comes as no surprise to discover the two major players in this case: the Institute for Justice and The Goldwater Institute are heavily financed by the Koch Brothers and the Walton Foundation (Wal-Mart).

At this point, I think the only sane thing for a person to do is register themselves as a corporation too. Apparently our natural existence is no match for the legal fiction.

I think it’s quite possible that this issue could be the single greatest long-term threat to Apple. I’d hate to see today’s handset makers turn into yesterday’s tobacco companies.

Let's look at the difference between "yesterday's tobacco companies" and "today's handset makers". The link between tobacco consumption and cancer had:

• Massive amounts of evidence gathered by respected independent scientists supporting the link.
• A clear set of causative mechanisms.
• A campaign funded by the tobacco industry to deny the independent science.

What does the cell phone cancer "link" have going for it?

• A massive amount of research by respected independent scientists showing no identifiable link.
• A tiny amount of evidence supporting a possible link that, at best, could be classified as inconclusive.
• No causative mechanism that has yet been advanced that doesn't defy the laws of physics and biology.
• A political organization bowing to pressure from hysterical anti-science elements within various European governments.

Yeah, Apple and Philip Morris -- can't tell 'em apart without a microscope.

In his post Mike states:

What I propose is this: for every API that is infected by parasites, we cut off the branch and boycott the API. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to be able to use an API without being sued, the same way it’s not unreasonable to expect to use an API without getting spam.

On the one hand I absolutely understand where Mike is coming from with this — with the caveat that it’s a bit naive to expect Apple Legal to have a public response to this issue after only three business days — and in another situation I might be in complete agreement. On the other hand, I think that focusing on the In App Purchase API misses a bigger point.

If we take a look at what the douchenozzles at Lodsys claim their patents cover, it’s fairly obvious that the current scuffle over In App Purchases is the tip of a much larger iceberg. Lodsys claims that their patents cover:

• providing online help, customer support, and tutorials
• conducting online subscription renewals
• providing for online purchasing of consumable supplies
• surveying users for their impressions of their products and services
• assisting customers to customize their products and services
• displaying interactive online advertisements
• collecting information on how users actually use their products and services
• selling upgrades or complimentary products
• maintaining products by providing users notice of available updates and assisting in the installation of those updates.

Read that list. Now read it again. Lodsys is basically claiming ownership of every method monetizing the Internet other than “a method of showing titties to horny teenagers.”

If we insist on Apple focusing its energy on the current ox being gored we run the chance of failing to avert the bigger disaster. Should Apple act swiftly to protect developers who have committed no crime other than to utilize an API promoted by Apple? Absolutely. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. App developers will not be safe from Lodsys until their egregiously over-broad patents are invalidated.

While a boycott on the In App Purchase API might be emotionally satisfying, what we really need is a call for every company with an interest in the Internet: Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. to band together to have Lodsys and their patents stricken from the planet.

Note: Neither Mike’s boycott or my counter-proposal addresses the desperate need for patent reform. That’s a seperate, and much larger debate.

We begin with one of the standard New Media Douchebag calls to action:

On Twitter I see random messages making broad statements about men re the rape charges against Julian Assange. I think we’re going into dangerous territory, and there’s a good chance we’re being manipulated, and before it goes too far, I want to try to moderate it, and talk about what we know and what we don’t know.

Oh thank Jove that we have Dave Winer to show us the light. I’d hate to veer into “dangerous territory.” Dave proceeds with a list of barely connected comments, so for expediency’s sake I’ll address them one by one.

1. As far as I know there aren’t any charges against Julian Assange, in Sweden or elsewhere.

Well thanks for clearing that up for us Dave. I’m sure of you just send a message to the British courts they’ll get this sorted out with a quickness. Now, as for me, I’m far too lazy to go looking up if Mr. Assange has actually been charged with a crime in Sweden. What I do know, however, is that the Swedish government issued an arrest warrant for him. Good enough for me.

2. What I’ve read in the Guardian about the charges sound to me like he might not be a very nice person. But where I come from, that is not a crime — nor is it in Sweden, which seems like a fair country.

Hermes’ toe-jam Dave! Are there charges or not!? But Dave’s right about one thing, being a prick isn’t a crime. Which is a good thing for me I guess.

3. Rape is awful. But I think it’s almost as awful to falsely accuse someone of rape, because that’s going to radically change an innocent person’s life, for the worse. And it’s so easy to do, it’s one person’s word against another’s.

Urgh, here we go. If there’s one thing that Dave is chock-a-block full of, it’s white male privilege and moral equivalency. Yes Dave, it’s horrible when someone is falsely accused of rape. You know what’s infinitely worse though, SOMEONE BEING RAPED!!!

4. Some people use these issues as a way of saying sexist things about men. General statements that indict a whole gender, or a big chunk of one (like “men in tech,” for example). I’m sure they don’t think every man is guilty, and if you stop them and say that, they claim that isn’t what they’re saying. But if you simply flip the genders, and make broad sweeping negative statements about women, I guess they wouldn’t have any trouble seeing the sexism.

Ah, one of my favorite gambits. Make the generalization that “some people” are making generalizations about a group in order to invalidate the actual specific accusations. Of course, since Dave didn’t bother to actually cite any of these so called generalizations, there ain’t much else to say here.

5. I agree with and support feminism. The line I won’t cross is condemning men in the cause of feminism. Nor would I support it the other way. If you want to speak up for your gender, or my gender — great! But not if you’re going to go negative on the other guys.

“I support feminism, now get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” Ok, it’s not that bad, but pretty fucking close. This right here is the classic cry of rich white male privilege: “I’m all for you having the same opportunities as me, but let’s not talk about the historical and cultural baggage that makes that nigh impossible.” Again though, Dave can’t be arsed to provide any examples of women making sweeping man-hating generalizations, so it’s a bit difficult to know what he’s on about here.

6. One rule I try to remember: We create each other. My mother was a woman. So was yours. Your father was a man. Mine too. We learned their values, like it or not. I am who I am not solely because I am a man, but also because I am my mother’s son, and my grandmothers’ grandson. And the student of all the women teachers I had (most of them were women). And I am also the product of every relationship I’ve had. It’s a big mixed bag of genders that form whole people. If you want to find the cause of something, it’s never as simple as one gender doing it to the other.

This twaddle isn’t even worth my time.

7. Let’s be smart. What do you think the chances are that the charges against Assange, coming in the middle of a political shitstorm, from a country whose Prime Minister is closely tied to the US government, are exactly what they seem to be? Suppose it were men making charges against a woman, in similar circumstances? Would your bullshit detector be a little more alarmed? It shouldn’t be, if you’re not being sexist.

Diablo! Dave’s prose here is so tortured (peep that double-negative at the end yo) that it’s almost impossible to parse this. I suppose he’s playing the conspiracy card. Sadly, I’ve seen this meme played out far too often in the nerd commentary on this matter; sometimes going so far as to accuse Mr. Assange’s accusers of being CIA plants.

Look, the bottom line is this. Is Julian Assange being targeted for, let’s call it “enhanced prosecution,” due to his activities with WikiLeaks? Probably. But that happens all the time. To go from there into conspiracyville is gratuitous.

8. Let’s seek balance. I’m not going to stand up and say the charges are bullshit. But I’m not going to say they’re not. In the US, the country I come from, the standard is “innocent until proven guilty.” It doesn’t say “except if you’re a man charged with rape.” I like that standard a lot. Why don’t we stay there until there’s a verdict?

So tell us then Dave, if you’re not going to stand up and take a side on this, then why did you subject the world to this ill-thought-out insult to gender relations. Oh, that’s right, you’re a New Media Douchebag and expecting you to keep your yap shut on an issue that is vaguely related to technology is like expecting a chimp not to fling its own poo.

9. One more thing. This all should be kept separate from the work that WikiLeaks is doing. Please.

Then the point of you writing this was what again? Thought so.

Updated to add a link to a very thorough of the “conspiracy” claims regarding Assange’s arrest here.

Dig this angry mick laying out the reasons why Ireland’s economy is buggered. Especially the part where he points out that the U.S. is next. “Wankin’ bankers,” indeed.

Local politics too no less — skip this one if that ain’t your bag.

This actually took even less time than I anticipated, but is it in any way shape or form surprising? Today Jan Brewer, the daffy bint that Arizona swept into office as Governor, revealed her master-plan for fixing the State’s economy. Of course, as anyone with half a brain cell could have predicted, it consists of…wait for it…cuts to the State’s education budget and tax cuts for corporations. But hey, at least we’ll be putting all those smelly wetbacks in their place!

The “best” part of this bag of rotting weasel shit:

Under current law, these firms pay Arizona taxes based 50 percent on sales within the state, 25 percent on the value of their property and 25 percent on the amount of their payroll.

Lawmakers agreed several years ago to let corporations elect an alternate method based 80 percent on sales. That benefits manufacturers of things ranging from computer chips to missiles whose customers are elsewhere.

Brewer’s plan would up that to 100 percent. So a company with no sales in Arizona would owe nothing in state corporate income taxes.

Let that one rattle around in your noggin for a bit. If a company has offices here in this desert hell-hole but doesn’t sell shit here, they pay nothing in corporate tax. Of course, the kleptocratic response will be that this will “lure” business here and create jobs.

Yeah, look how well that’s working out for us.

Before you read the rest of my rant, or the inanity from Dash, I highly suggest you read Gladwell’s article. In brief, his argument is that, protestations of the New Media Douchebags not withstanding, “social networks” have not affected — and are incapable of affecting — real social and political change. Gladwell postulates, with no small amount of actual research cited, that this is because the activism required by true revolutionary movements require “strong-tie” relationships, whereas social networks mainly serve to create “weak-tie” relationships that encourage “easy” activism.

Gladwell offers an example of each type of activism. The “revolutionary” type is exemplified by the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 to protest the store’s segregation policy. The example given for the “easy” form of activism is the case of Sameer Bhatia, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who’s life was saved by a bone marrow transplant from a donor located via a Facebook campaign. The best quote to sum up Gladwell’s distinction between the two types of activism is the one that Dash provides:

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.

Dash, to his credit, doesn’t attempt to dispute this thesis, although he idiotically frames Gladwell’s argument as a strawman. He states:

I don’t come to refute Gladwell’s strawman argument. His point is that today’s social networks are fundamentally unable to drive the sort of social change that fueled upheavals like the civil rights movement. I agree; As I said last year, Facebook often enables politics of the sort that convinces college kids that changing their middle name on a website is a form of activism. And the idea that the uprisings in Iran were driven by Twitter or any other social media is clearly refuted by realities such as Hossein “Hoder” Derakhshan, the father of the Iranian blogosphere, being sentenced to nineteen years in prison. The traditional method sit-in and picket-in-the-streets form of protest is clearly a failure online.

First off, Anil you fucking ignoramus, look up what a “strawman” argument is. When Gladwell quotes actual people making the argument that he is refuting, it isn’t a fucking strawman. But that’s thin gruel compared to the real feast of fucking stupid that Anil is about to serve up. In some imbecilic attempt to try to equate rampant theft with civil disobedience Anil writes:

We have had an enormous and concerted act of social disobedience play out over the past half-decade, where millions have decided that the present regime of intellectual property law and corporate control over the way we communicate is no longer tenable. So, every day, with the click of a button, people from all walks of life are ignoring the law and protesting in public, simply by uploading content to YouTube or Facebook or anywhere else.

Henry David Thoreau would be so proud. Or not. See, Anil, being a cheap asshole is not some act of nobility. Real practitioners of civil disobedience accept the consequences of their actions. When have any one of you thieving cock-suckers been able to say the same. I suppose that in Dash’s world the prick that cut me off driving to work this morning was some noble crusader, protesting the hideous injustice of aggressive driving laws — or he might just have been an asshole.

Not content to merely be a thieving asshole, Anil proceeds to inform us that he has found the true revolutionaries of the social networks. The real inheritors of the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement:

The “Maker” Movement

Yes, as in the hipster douchebags who cobble together random bits of crap and somehow presume that they’re doing something that hasn’t been done for thousands of years before them.

And if we put the making movement in the context of other social and political movements, it’s had amazing success. In city after city, year after year, tens of thousands of people pay money to show up and learn about taking control of their media, learning, consumption and communications. In contrast to groups like the Tea Party, the crowd at Maker Faire is diverse, includes children and adults of all ages, and never finds itself in conflict with other groups based on identity or politics.

That’s right Anil, it is all candy and unicorn semen — because it’s a fucking hobby you ass-tart.

I wish that I owned a time machine. If I did I would take Anil Dash and plunk his arrogant, self-entitled ass down in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. Let’s see how his social media savvy and his Maker savoir faire contend with being a person of color in the 1960’s deep South. I’d like to see this smugly narcissistic asshole try to explain to Martin Luther King how Burning Man is just like the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

On the other hand, I’d settle for him just shutting the fuck up.

Update:

Gods damn it, I forgot to link to the dipshit’s post.

Of course, right off the bat we have the standard New Media Douchebag idiocy of redefining terms as they go along in order to support whatever cockamamie idea that they’re pedaling this week. “Recession” has a meaning, and while actual economists may argue over the specific metrics that define a “recession,” we don’t get to re-define it to mean what would be better termed the complete destruction of the middle-class.”

Godin opens up with some quasi-economic babble larded with barely-understood jargon:

This is the recession of the industrial age, the receding wave of bounty that workers and businesses got as a result of rising productivity but imperfect market communication.

In short: if you’re local, we need to buy from you. If you work in town, we need to hire you. If you can do a craft, we can’t replace you with a machine.

No longer.

The lowest price for any good worth pricing is now available to anyone, anywhere. Which makes the market for boring stuff a lot more perfect than it used to be.

Barring a clear and concise statement of his fucking thesis, I’ll assume that Godin is playing on the hoary old argument that the shift in industrial manufacturing from the “West” to developing nations such as China and Mexico is an inevitable consequence of the march of civilization. To which I respond: why?

We can have valid debate as to the desirability of ceding our manufacturing capability to other nations and whether governments should attempt to prevent such, but let’s not pretend that some Randoid fantasy land where it’s inevitable and desirable for Capital to race to the cheapest possible solutions in all cases is the only possible state.

Seth continues:

Since the ‘factory’ work we did is now being mechanized, outsourced or eliminated, it’s hard to pay extra for it. And since buyers have so many choices (and much more perfect information about pricing and availability) it’s hard to charge extra.

Thus, middle class jobs that existed because companies had no choice are now gone.

Ugh. The first paragraph is techno-lolbertarian babble. The second, however is despicable New Media Douchebag elitism. How DARE those tedious middle-class people, those blue-collar workers, those farmers, those grey-flannel suits think that they can continue to perform the work that actually created the society that Seth now enjoys. Why, I doubt that any of them have managed to write 12 books that most of the world has never heard of, let alone become a successful blogger. The nerve of them.

Then, of course, we come to the crux of the matter. Seth’s prescription for the tired masses. The solution for those poor saps who thought that they could build a career actually producing things before the corporations realized that they could just have some slave-laborer in a third-world sweatshop do the work for pennies on the dollar. Well, as usuall with these sort of articles, the solution is somewhat slippery.

The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it’s not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it’s not going to.

Fast, smart and flexible are embraced by the network. Linchpin behavior. People and companies we can’t live without (because if I can live without you, I’m sure going to try if the alternative is to save money).

Yes! be “smart” “fast” and “flexible.” Work the “network” like some gap-toothed street whore.

What does any of that actually mean you ask. Fuck if I know, but I’m sure Seth and his ilk will be willing to tell you. Just purchase their next book from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or wherever New Media Douchebag fuckwittery is sold.

I sadly have to disagree with PZ over at Pharyngula regarding the controversy surrounding some bumpkin’s plan to burn a copy of the Qur’an. In a post today PZ essentially argues that the only appropriate to the threatened book roasting is a hearty, “whatever.”

On the one hand, PZ is right that the Qur’an is just a book, imbued with no more mystical powers than a copy of The Da Vinci Code. In a rational world no one would be upset if some hillbilly lit a copy up in some feebled-minded protest against “radical Islam.” On the other hand, this isn’t a rational world. And the fuckwit planning this little book burning isn’t doing it as some sort of high-minded demonstration of the ultimate unimportance of religious symbols. No, Terry Jones is doing this as a calculated affront to a community.

If, instead of a Christian religious leader burning the sacred text of a different religion, this was a member of the Klu Klux Klan burning a cross on an African-American’s lawn would we respond by saying “Hey man, it’s just a piece of wood. No worries”? No, we wouldn’t. The fact that it is a religious object being destroyed is secondary to the true message in the act. Which is to anger and intimidate people who follow the Islamic religion. Sure, in a perfect world we’d all be happy little atheists and wouldn’t have to worry about religious differences. But in reality we’re not. And in the real world have a duty to stand up to those who would attack others without cause. No matter whether that attack comes in the form of burning a book, burning a building, or burning a person.