Free Speech

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…British style.  There is a trial in progress in Leeds (northern England, a bit up the road northeast of Manchester) concerning a

Muslim gang on trial for raping and grooming hundreds of victims, some as young as eleven.

Tommy Robinson, a British activist-journalist, was arrested and hauled off to prison for the heinous crime of reporting information about the defendants—public information, mind you.

British media are forbidden from reporting on certain trials….

The rationalization is that reporting might taint the jury.  Because some juries are more easily tainted than other juries on other trials.  Cue Bill the Cat.

No, it’s a matter of the British government, in the land that gave the world the Magna Carta and John Locke—and jury trials—not trusting its own citizens with the truth.  It’s also a matter of political correctness run amok.  Telling the truth might hurt the feelings of the defendants.

This is the culture the Progressive-Democrats and the Left generally want us to have.

 

h/t Ralph for this one.

The Libya Model and the NLMSM

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Much has been made of National Security Advisor John Bolton’s remark that the “Libya Model” would make a good example for handling northern Korea’s nuclear weapons and its nuclear weapons development program.  That todo is centered on what the NLMSM is pleased to describe as the “Libya Model.”  Deutsche Welle‘s characterization is typical:

…North Korea could end up like Libya, which found itself in a civil war and its leader killed after giving up its nuclear weapons.

That’s not the Libya Model; it’s a deliberate conflation of two separate events.  The Libya Model is this.  Libya under Muammar Gaddafi had been subject to economic and political sanction as a result of its complicity in a number of terrorist acts for some years.  The US’ burning Saddam Hussein’s evil government in early 2003 was the final straw: in late 2003, Gaddafi agreed to give up his nuclear weapons program, and international facilities shortly after the agreement dismantled and removed all traces of it.  Libya lived peacefully with its neighbors in the ensuing years, and the incidence of its participation in terrorist activities fell off sharply, even if Gaddafi did continue to sorely abuse his own people.

Fully eight years later, an entirely separate event occurred.  As part of the Arab Spring of 2011, the Libyan people revolted against Gaddafi’s thuggish rule, and with the active support of European air power and American refueling aircraft and ordnance resupply (the European nations quickly ran out of bombs—literally—and had to be resupplied by us; those same nations also had no air refueling tankers of their own; two examples of a level of preparation that might sound familiar today), they succeeded in overthrowing the Gaddafi regime.

These cynical misrepresentations by the NLMSM do not help in dealing with rogue gangs like northern Korea’s rulers.

Some People

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…would rather find a reason to be offended than see humor, even if that humor isn’t their style.  Such folks are professional victims.  Here’s an advertising sign that one physical fitness gym owner has put up to advertise his business.

Folks actually are up in arms over this.  Is the joke for everyone?  Of course not; no joke is; not even those told by Milton Berle or Bob Hope.

That’s a big so what, though; humor varies from person to person.  Nevertheless, professional victims are calling him out for fat-shaming folks, for bullying folks.

Snowflakes need to get over themselves.  If they don’t want to be fat, then they should take steps to stop being fat.  If they say they’re satisfied with their bodies and don’t want to be called out for their shapes, then they should be satisfied and stop worrying about what strangers say.  After all, the only ones these folks—anyone, come to that—need to please is themselves first, and then their significant others.  And their bosses if they work for a company for which public appearance matters to the business.

On the concern about bullying, one solution—a better solution—is to stop being bullied. Bullies have only the power their victims choose to give them.  Yes, it’s hard to stop being bullied.  “Hard” means “possible.”

Memorial Day Celebrations

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I first posted this in 2012.  It bears repeating.

Enjoy this holiday.  Take the time to kick back, relax from the hard work you’ve been doing, and just goof off for a bit.

While you’re doing that, though, do something else, also.  Invite that veteran in your neighborhood, who came back from his service wounded or maimed, and his or her family, to your celebration.  Invite the family in your neighborhood whose veteran was killed in his or her service to your celebration.  They need the break and the relaxation and the support, also.  And they’ve earned your respect and remembrance.

To which I add this, excerpted from Alex Horton’s remarks on the significance of the day to him and his:

I hope civilians find more solace in Memorial Day than I do.  Many seem to forget why it exists in the first place, and spend the time looking for good sales or drinking beers on the back porch.  It’s a long weekend, not a period of personal reflection.  At the same time, many incorrectly thank Vets or active duty folks for their service.  While appreciated, it’s misdirected.  That’s what Veterans Day is for.  Instead, they should take some time and remember the spirit of the country and the dedication of those men and women who chose to pick up arms.  They never came home to be thanked, and only their memory remains.

 

h/t Spirit of Enterprise

The FBI and Backdoors

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Recall that the FBI has long wanted government-accessible backdoors into our personal but encrypted communications.  “Trust us,” FBI leadership assures us, “we wouldn’t misuse that access; we’ll only use for ‘criminal’ investigations, and only with government authorization.”  And they’ve claimed in support of that wide-eyed innocence that they can’t break into over 7,000 cell phones in the pursuit of criminal investigations.  Current FBI Director Christopher Wray even put the number at over 7,700.

However.

On Tuesday, the FBI told PCMag that a programming error resulted in a “significant overcounting” of the encrypted devices. “The FBI is currently conducting an in-depth review of how this over-counting previously occurred,” the agency said in a statement.

PCMag went on to cite the Washington Post as putting the actual number at around 1,200.

Oops, indeed.

According to the agency, starting in April 2016, it began using a new “collection methodology” with how it counted the encrypted devices. But only recently did the FBI become aware of flaws in the methodology, it said, without elaborating.

Right.

“Given the availability of these third-party solutions, we’ve questioned how and why the FBI finds itself thwarted by so many locked phones,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post.

Indeed.  Whether this government agency was being dishonest in its characterization of the encryption “problem,” or it was just being incredibly sloppy in using “collection methodology” that it has so plainly inadequately tested, this incident is just one more reason Government cannot be trusted with back doors into privately encrypted personal correspondence.