“Legal fictions, bankruptcy and straw men among baffling beliefs of sovereign citizens - Minneapolis Star Tribune” plus 2 more

Legal fictions, bankruptcy and straw men among baffling beliefs of sovereign citizens - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Did Korean Officials Really Need To Raid Google Offices Over Street View WiFi ... - Tech Dirt
An Impromptu Agnostic's Manifesto - Associated Content

Legal fictions, bankruptcy and straw men among baffling beliefs of sovereign citizens - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:01 PM PDT

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Did Korean Officials Really Need To Raid Google Offices Over Street View WiFi ... - Tech Dirt

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:58 PM PDT

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

It's been a few months since Google admitted that its Street View vehicles were collecting some data from open WiFi networks. Those familiar with the basic technology involved have explained why this was almost certainly an accident, and there's no evidence whatsoever that anything was even done with the data. However, there have been a whole bunch of lawsuits filed, and it's difficult to find a government that hasn't said they'd investigate the issue.

To date, it seems that Google has bent over backwards to work with every government investigating this issue, no matter how varied their requests were on the matter. So far, the UK's investigation has found that the WiFi sniffing didn't appear to collect any sensitive data, though others are still investigating. More recently, Google agreed to allow Germans to opt-out of Street View.

Given Google's clear willingness to help out, it seems a bit odd that South Korean officials -- many months after the news of this came out -- suddenly decided to raid Google's Korean offices over this matter:

A police statement said they suspected Google has been collecting and storing data on "unspecified internet users from wi-fi networks"

Brilliant police work there, guys. It only took you three months to "suspect" what Google admitted in May.

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An Impromptu Agnostic's Manifesto - Associated Content

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:05 AM PDT

I don't know if I deserve the "courageous" label because I don't especially advertise my beliefs. Personally I find the topic of religion interesting, but it isn't something I debate, except maybe in the sense of

"preaching to the choir," to use the most ironic metaphor. It's something like-minded friends and I joke about, but that's about it. As far as I'm concerned, the non-existence of any supreme being described by any religion is as obvious to me as the fact that it doesn't make any sense to have rooftops that are black in Southern states. But people do. The majority of them even. Why? Tradition. Folks never question it. They're content to pay unnecessarily high electric bills. Me? I sprayed a fine layer of white latex paint on my roof and watched my bills fall in the summer. This isn't rocket science; you just have to realize things aren't "just so"; they're the product of unchallenged assumptions.

Religion is characterized by promises with a paucity of factual backing or even credible projections (which brings to mind the current economic crisis). For example, how is the afterlife depicted? Sitting around on clouds? All the food you can eat? A harem of seventy-two virgins? There's no legitimate first-hand reporting because obviously there can't be. It's an imaginary place. As a result, the best anyone can conjure are hyperbolic attempts to play upon very human desires, even ones that presuppose a body or at least the desires associated with it. What about sensible questions such as if a widow and a widower marry one another subsequent to the death of their respective spouses, who will they be reunited with upon their inevitable deaths? Their original spouse(s)? Does the pre-deceased partner have to share custody when the surviving spouse's partner finally joins them? Is Heaven a swingers' party? If so, where are the Muslims getting all the virgins? Sacrifices from pagan rituals? These are the kinds of questions that ought to be put to the religious authorities who claim to have a direct line to their boss.

Ultimately, if you take away the promise of life after death from religion, what's left? Good stories? We've got cable and public libraries full of them. Moral direction? Hardly. Need I cite examples? You read the news; I don't have to enumerate headlines going back decades.

I realize no one likes to think of us as purely physical beings, but that's what we are. Our consciousness, memories, emotions, and all that's associated with life comes out of a physical substrate. The dying process is one more thing that confirms this fact. We tell ourselves little fictions that skirt the uncomfortable reality, and tv reinforces the delusion. Cancer patients in dramatic fiction always have their wits right up through to the end. They seem worn but manage to say something clever or poignant at the last just before they succumb. It invariably looks like they've just fallen asleep.

Fiction

Kamis, 12 Agustus 2010