BLOG POSTS

RSS feeds are a wonderful invention of the computer age. They let us know when our favorite blogs have a new post available, saving the drudgery of constantly harking back, only to find the same old drivel from six months ago that we’ve already read half a dozen times before.

I do hope regular readers of Sparrow Chat have such notifications available to them. For those who don’t, I must profusely apologize on behalf of the scumbags who managed to put the website out of action again for over a week, subjecting anyone attempting to access it to advertisements of a decidedly shady nature.

I’ve written of these sad, anti-social, creatures before so will waste little further space or effort on them. Every society has its outcasts, roaming the dark areas at the edge of civilization. The modern day internet hacker is no more than the 21st century equivalent of the 17th century founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, who ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor’s printing presses in 1844. The Expositor was an Illinois town newspaper that took exception to some of Smith’s preachings.

Smith, who was Mayor of Nauvoo at the time, had the paper terminated and the presses destroyed. He was later charged with riot, then ‘treason against Illinois’, and shot dead by a mob while awaiting trial.^[1]

It’s unlikely the modern day hacker would suffer a similar fate to that of Joseph Smith, but internet attacks on Sparrow Chat have now become so frequent they’re unlikely to be random SQL injections or botnets. Other websites, on the same host, are never affected.

I’m now convinced they’re in response to ‘anti-gun’ posts, or what are seen as ‘anti-American’ essays, that appear on Sparrow Chat from time to time. No doubt there are those, like Joseph Smith, who would wish to prevent such writings from publication, and turn to a ‘brute force attack’^[2] in retaliation.

The criminal hacker would seek to wrest temporary control of our computers from us. Perhaps of more concern are the corporate entities striving to take permanent control of them. How many of us have found ourselves members of “Google+”, without knowing how it came about? “Google+” is all about invading privacy – clawing information about us from watching our every computer move. How long will it be before Google can determine when we’re at work, robbing a bank, making love…

…or even using the toilet?

It’s so easy to become a member of Google+, but have you ever tried to escape from it? It is possible to do so, but it took me twenty minutes and an internet search, because Google doesn’t make it simple. And, if I click on the wrong link one day…

…I’ll be back inside again before I know it.

We’re all indoctrinated to be unconcerned by those mysterious downloads that regularly arrive from Microsoft, or Android (Google, again!), ostensibly to keep our computers secure, but we have no idea what they really do, or what they contain.

I run Windows XP on three computers, and Linux on two others. My XP machines are set to receive downloads from Microsoft, but not install them automatically. I like to see what they’re purporting to place on my hard drives. Consequently, I was somewhat surprised to see each of my three machines shut down and re-boot over the space of twenty-four hours, and to be informed via a pop-up message that Microsoft had installed updates that required an immediate re-boot of all three. There was no information on why, or what the download contained.

On checking “Control Panel’, I found all three machines had been hacked by Microsoft, and the download panel set to automatic install. Presumably, this was done to allow the installation of the previously mentioned download. While it may have had an entirely benign purpose, we’re supposed to trust these corporations in a rather, “father knows best”, sort of way. Which is fine when Big Daddy only has our interests at heart. Personally, where Microsoft and Google are concerned, I have my doubts.

It’s only recently Google removed its Gmail Notifier from circulation. The excuse: it was no longer needed as these days everyone checked their emails on their ‘smart’ phones. That’s a downright lie. I don’t. I relied on the Notifier and spent wasted time attempting to ascertain why it suddenly stopped working and permanently displayed an annoying exclamation mark, with the pop-up message: “Cannot connect to your mailbox. HTTP error 404”.

Was it costing Google anything to leave it alone? Probably not. It’s just another tiny example of how the dictatorial control of corporate business is steadily hacking away at our daily lives.

I began by discussing internet hacking, but that’s not the only form of hacking taking place in our societies today. There’s a more serious one – and I’m not talking Edward Snowden. He deserves a darned sight more support – not just from the American people, but from the population of the world at large. It’s not just the US government that has hidden secrets its people have a right to know about.

My own country, Britain, is gradually being taken over by what were once US companies, but are now called, “Multinationals”. The British government, probably via corrupt, ‘back-door’, payments to its members from corporate bosses, has sold out the nation to these corporations.

We must all be aware by now of the cosy relationship, recently thrust into the limelight via the News of the World scandal, between British politicians and the Murdoch corporations. Another prime example is the UK National Health Service, in process of being dismantled, brick by brick, and sold off for pennies on the dollar to private US health companies. Much of the UK manufacturing base has gone to US companies: famous names like Cadbury – taken over by Kraft Foods and factories closed; Debenhams – stripped of its assets by two US private equity firms; Asda, now part of the Walmart conglomerate.

Even as the News of the World was hacking royalty and a murdered teenager (among others), the British economy was being hacked apart, its politicians happy to let it happen because their hands are deep into US corporate wallets. Meanwhile, two and half million Britons are unable to find work, and the government labels them, “Scroungers”.

International hacking isn’t just a new internet problem. It could be defined as the standard practice of a dominate superpower. One dictionary definition:

…to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment; mutilate; mangle”

The Romans were past masters of the art; the British became equally adept. The United States is now in the prime of its hacking days. Militarily, economically, even religiously, the US steadily encroaches on the weaker nations of the planet, destroying economies and cultures in pursuit of corporate gain. How many Americans have conveniently forgotten…

…this image, well publicized during the Iraq war, as US armor hacked that nation to bits before leaving its remains to be devoured by fanatical religious vultures?

They’ve even found a new word for it: globalization.

I doubt my rants on Sparrow Chat will make one iota of difference in the end. But if we all sit back and say nothing then we may as well hand our lives and our freedoms over to the Walton family, or Ronald McDonald, today.

Those who try to silence Sparrow Chat are misguided. Corporate bosses couldn’t give a monkey’s toss what I say or write, even if they were aware of it. It’s the work of manic gun-lovers and ill-informed ‘freedom freaks’ who think they’re defending some long held tradition of Americanism, unaware that it never truly existed, and never will.

They don’t need a gun to be free. They only need one to kill. If they think they’re defending the American way of life, then they’ve never really studied the American way of life. It neither bears, nor has it ever borne, any relation to the ideals they try to uphold, yet cannot even find the words to define.

They may think it’s good to hack into websites that espouse a different doctrine from theirs, but their myopia blinds them to the reality that it is they whose freedoms are being hacked, even as they strive in their own inept way to defend the perpetrators.

^{[1] “Death of Joseph Smith” Wikipedia.}

^{[2] “Brute Force Attack” Wikipedia.}

Last night, ABC News pointed out there was a dearth of Americans attending the Sochi Winter Olympics. They should be congratulated. After all, considering the hatchet-job accomplished by the US media in denouncing the games and its Russian hosts, I’m surprised even American athletes attended.

Ever since Edward Snowden ran off with the state secrets, not an opportunity’s been missed to have a go at Russia in general, and Vladimir Putin in particular. Did Putin put him up to it? Was he working for the Russians?

Then, along came the preparations for the “Games”, and suddenly terrorists were popping out the woodwork all over Russia. You could attend the games, at your own risk, but you’d best learn the Russian for, “Sell me some toothpaste, please,” because you’re not taking your tube of Colgate along.

Then came the US media’s catalogue of Russian defects: the hotels weren’t built; the stadium wouldn’t be ready on time; the village was a sea of mud; surely Russian workers were the laziest in the world(?); there were no locks on the bathroom doors, and – concealed video cameras in the showers.

The ultimate delight for those paragons of virtue in US newsrooms was during the opening ceremony, when a snowflake failed to metamorphose into an Olympic ring. Oh, my God! Could those doggone Ruskys get nothing right?

My personal ‘moment of Zen’ was a remark from P J O’Rourke (a journalist whose writings I greatly admire, though rarely agree with) on the Bill Maher show.

When asked by Maher what he, as a well traveled man, thought of Russia. O’Rourke’s responding monologue on the state of that nation included the phrase, “…a country very lacking in culture…”.

O’Rourke could possibly be forgiven for never having heard of renowned Russian classical painters like, Ivanov or Borovikovsky. His knowledge of Soviet history may not take in the father of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin…

…born just twenty-three years after the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, or Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov who, with Charles Townes, shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics “for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser–laser principle”.^[1]

O’Rourke, however, cannot be excused his deliberate denial of such great artists as: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergey Diaghilev, Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev, the Bolshoi Ballet Company, et al.. Maybe he believes the world’s oldest film school is in Hollywood? It’s not. It’s the Russian State Institute of Cinematography, in Moscow.

Or, is it possible O’Rourke’s definition of “culture” is merely to win a gold medal at the Olympics – for snowboarding?

Those who follow the BBC News may be aware of the floods presently engulfing much of England.

It’s no comfort to read that the UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, ‘suspects’ the possible cause to be global climate change.

This, from the BBC yesterday:

At Prime Minister’s Questions last month, Mr Cameron said he “suspected” that the recent storms to batter the UK and the extreme weather in North America were connected to global temperature changes – an argument challenged by some Conservative MPs and peers.

He subsequently clarified the remarks, saying that although “you can’t point to one weather event and say that is climate change”, many scientists were talking of a link between the two.

“The point I was really trying to make is, whatever you think – even if you think that (climate change) is mumbo-jumbo – because these things are happening more often, it makes sense to do all you can to… prevent these floods affecting so many people and that is exactly what we are doing.”^[2]

Mister Cameron, who’s never been known for his supportive stance on man-made climate change, may be in process of an embarrassing U-turn due to a recently published report by the UK’s Meteorological Office.

The BBC again:

Dame Julia [Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist] said the UK had seen the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years”.

Unsettled weather at this time of year was not unexpected – but the prolonged spell of rain, as well as the intensity and height of coastal waves, was “very unusual”.

“We have records going back to 1766 and we have nothing like this,” she said. “We have seen some exceptional weather. We can’t say it is unprecedented but it is exceptional.”

The report links the recent extreme weather in Europe and North America to “perturbations” in the North Atlantic and Pacific jet streams, partly emanating from changing weather patterns in South East Asia and “associated with higher than normal ocean temperatures in that region”.^[2]

British weather records go back ten years prior to the US Declaration of Independence, and thirty-three years before Alexander Pushkin was born. Since then, at least, the winter of 2013/14 has produced the most catastrophic weather Britain has ever suffered. I wonder how much evidence Mister Cameron will require before he fires the man whom, in 2012, he put in charge of the environment – Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson.

Paterson is a known climate skeptic. His choice for the job had more to do with his backing for the expansion of Heathrow Airport, than any track record as a protector of the environment. Paterson is one of those dying breed of men: the would-be aristocrat. He has a passion for hunting foxes with hounds, describing those who campaigned against the cruel practice as, “Nazis”. His wealth is estimated in the region of $2.25 million. He supports GM crop production in Britain, and just loves the pesticide industry.

In January, as a sop to English farmers, Paterson authorized the slaughter of 70% of the badger population of two English counties by shooting and trapping. Badgers are known to carry TB and infect cattle herds. The cull was both unnecessary and counter-productive. Only 24% of the badgers were killed, and the pilot project “..designed to show how effective, humane and safe a cull could be…” was a total failure.

A more humane alternative, the vaccinating of cattle against the disease, has long been dismissed as too expensive by the politicians, even though it will prove the only option long term.

Today, we hear that Paterson has decided it’s time to dredge the Somerset Levels – the most flooded area of Britain at this time. It may have been a viable proposition ten years ago, but will have no effect on preventing flooding in the future, assuming climate change doesn’t do a convenient reversal. Once again, Paterson is merely assuaging his fellow land owners without prior consultation with expert scientific bodies.

No doubt he fervently hopes all these problems will eventually go away and he can return to a life of affluent leisure on his country estate.

It’s unlikely Cameron will remove him. After all, it’s jobs for the boys – and ‘the boys’ always stick together.

In a nutshell, the UK’s Owen Paterson is to the environment, what America’s P. J. O’Rourke is to Russian culture.

^{[1] “Alexander Prokhorov” Wikipedia}

^{[2] “Met Office: Evidence ‘suggests climate change link to storms'” BBC, February 9th 2014}

It was called the “Bloody Code”, and between 1688 and 1815 it was responsible for the deaths of thousands, for no more dastardly crime than stealing an article valued at twelve pence or more. In Britain, by the end of the 17th century, there were 220 offences on the statute book punishable by death.

Thankfully, the nation gradually grew more civilized. By 1861 only five offences carried the ultimate punishment: murder, piracy, espionage, high treason, and arson in a naval dockyard. While the latter may appear incongruous to us now, it should be remembered that the first iron clad warships didn’t appear until the middle of the nineteenth century. Prior to this, fire in a naval dockyard could prove disastrous for the fleet.

Thankfully, by the end of the 1960’s, capital punishment had been all but abolished in the UK (though it wasn’t until 1971 that ‘arson in a naval dockyard’ was no longer legally punishable by death). While no executions took place in the UK after 1964, it was only in 2004 that its government finally acceded to the 13th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibited the death penalty outright. Europe, and the United Kingdom, finally became civilized.

Whether it was the effects of the civilian bombings on British cities during World War II, or for some other more nebulous reason, the British people in general appear to hold a more humane attitude to the taking of ‘a life for a life’, than is the case with their American counterparts across the Atlantic. Of course, it took some hundreds of years for the death penalty in Britain to be finally abolished, and it must be noted that some sections of the UK citizenry still exert pressure for its reintroduction. Their demands are usually most vociferous following a particularly nasty murder, often involving a child or children. Fortunately, to date, their voices have generally gone unheeded.

Media presentation is exceedingly influential in defining how the public respond to high-profile trials. Allowing television in court rooms is perhaps one of the most scandalous decisions ever taken in this area. How a jury can possibly make an unbiased decision as to the guilt or otherwise of the defendant, given the media hype surrounding some high-profile trials, is highly questionable. In the United States, certain television channels devote much of their run-time to arguing the guilt or innocence of defendants both before and during a trial, some of which can go on for weeks, if not months.

By the time a jury retires to consider its verdict, the whole nation has taken sides and the process of determining whether a defendant should forfeit his life reduced to nothing more than entertainment value. Numerous interviews with friends and relatives of the victim(s), who frequently give vent to hysterics, and screams for vengeance, whip up audiences to even greater frenzy. Seldom, if ever, do we hear from the family of the accused.

Frankly, even though we’re more advanced technologically, the process is reminiscent of the entertainment for the masses provided by 18th century hangings at Tyburn in England, or the guillotining of aristocrats in Paris, France, during the revolution.

Until 1981, under British law, ‘sub judice’ prevented the reporting of, or commenting on, any case once the defendant had been arrested. This has now been superseded by the 1981 Contempt of Court Act, which serves a similar purpose.

Owing to the somewhat ridiculously adhered to First Amendment right of ‘freedom of speech’, such is not the case in the USA. Consequently, jurors and courts are open to all types of prejudicial bombardment from outside influences, and the chances of the defendant receiving a fair trial are drastically reduced. Public opinion is egregiously swayed by continuous media discussions, often involving so-called ‘experts’ of dubious qualification, and the whole process becomes nothing more than a media circus.

Under such circumstances the possibility of an incorrect verdict, resulting in an innocent person being found guilty, is vastly increased. Consequently, it’s safe to assume a percentage of prisoners on ‘death row’ are innocent of the crimes they’ve been found guilty of committing.

It’s a common argument, from those who still advocate its use, that the death penalty is a deterrent to violent crime. It was George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax…

…who, in the mid-17th century, remarked:

Men are not hang’d for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.”

He was wrong then, just as those who advocate its deterrent effects are wrong today. The threat of any punishment does not deter the ardent criminal. At the time of the offence he believes he will not be caught.

As I read this week of the agonizing death of Dennis McGuire, executed in Ohio,^[1] or the execution of Edgar Tamayo, a Mexican, in Texas^[2] -illegally under international law- I am forced to the belief that this great superpower, with its grip around the throat of the world, has yet to learn the meaning of ‘civilization’.

It’s not that I hold much sympathy for the executed. Often the crimes they committed and the atrocities they performed caused far greater trauma to their victims. My concern is for the frightening lack of humanity on display in this country, and volubly applauded by the media. It’s easy to forget that executions are carried out on our behalf. We cannot remove ourselves from the responsibility simply because we’re not the ones tightening the straps, raising the vein, inserting the needle.

Read the reports of journalists allowed access to men on death row, and virtually without exception the reporter writes of a strong realization that these men are real human beings. However callous, cruel, or cold-blooded the crime, it pays to remind ourselves the perpetrator was somebody’s son, father, uncle or nephew.

Before joining Fox News, or CNN, in applauding the execution of yet another long-term inmate of the death cell, it may be as well to remember: it’s not what capital punishment imposes on the criminal so much, as the un-civilizing effect it inflicts on those responsible for imposing it.

^{[1] “Row over ‘agonising’ Ohio execution of killer Denis McGuire” BBC, January 17th 2014}

^{[2] “Texas executes Mexican Edgar Tamayo, despite protests” BBC, January 22nd 2014}