WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

@OmSigDAVID,

The example is too stark. I don't think I would assert that "proof" exists for that idea on such a basis.

I would consider that a man supporting the teaching of evolution has proved himself uneducated. Whether that constitutes low intelligence is another matter. He may well be quite intelligent in other fields.

That the English mode of football is stupid was asserted the other day by the use of a U-tube video of members of the Monte Python team performing a gratuitous sketch in which the stupidity of our footballers was acted out. The poster who linked that video was effectively asserting that our footballers are moronic and, by extension, the supporters of football.

Posting such a video is objectively stupid because the Python team either could have avoided the subject or even produced a sketch where footballers were presented in a good light. The disparagement of football in the sketch had nothing to do with football and was produced for entertainment purposes. So also the linking of the video where it presumably stood in for the poster's assertion that football fans and players are as dumb as they were depicted.

And the sketch, and the linking of it, proved nothing except that the sketch had been performed. Nothing about football I mean.

Some atheists are fond of linking material, cartoons usually, which assert that Christians are destructive morons. In effect the poster linking the material has asserted that Christians are morons.

What I think is needed is moderation of the site where the moderator/s sets the tone of the etiquette and can ban or suspend posters infringing the standards acceptable to the site.

Someone asserting that a supporter of Joe Blow is dumb and unfit to vote has demonstrated his or her own stupidity assuming Mr Blow is not a crackpot fringe candidate who is promising to return to the gold standard, or to nationalise the means of production, distribution and exchange or to disenfranchise anybody with assets of less than, say, $200,000, or for being male.

2 Replies

@spendius,

Quote:

Someone asserting that a supporter of Joe Blow is dumb and unfit to vote has demonstrated his or her own stupidity assuming Mr Blow is not a crackpot fringe candidate who is promising to return to the gold standard, or to nationalise the means of production, distribution and exchange or to disenfranchise anybody with assets of less than, say, $200,000, or for being male.

You left out wearing a towel on the head. Tut-tut

0 Replies

Quote:

US to hand over emails in WikiLeaks soldier case
(Agence France-Presse, October 18, 2012)

A US judge ordered prosecutors to hand over hundreds of emails by officers overseeing the detention of WikiLeaks suspect Mr Bradley Manning, who has alleged he suffered mistreatment at a Marine Corps brig.

Lawyers for Manning, a US Army private accused of passing a trove of secret government documents to the WikiLeaks website, had asked for the emails to bolster their argument that the soldier suffered illegal treatment when he was held at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia starting in 2010.

Yesterday's decision means the defense will have access to a total of about 1,300 emails, including those the judge ordered released.

The defense had argued the emails were potentially pertinent for their motion contending Manning was subjected to unlawful pre-trial punishment, but prosecutors had said the emails were irrelevant.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Which throws light on the discussion here about Ignore/Blocking of communications. It shows that the final arbitration is a matter for the judiciary.

The fact is that a juridical decision on the discussion about our Ignore/Blocking system (a black list so to speak) is unlikely in proportion to A2k's importance in the affairs of the nation and to the extent that such recourse to the law is ridiculous provides a measure of A2K's importance.

It follows, I think, that the more unimportant A2K is the more unimportant is the matter of how it conducts itself. To imagine that how A2K conducts itself is a matter of importance is to imagine that any disputes about the conduct of its affairs should be settled by a judicial decision.

Of course, as I have stressed, it is important to Bob because he has invested money and no doubt a due amount of blood, sweat and tears. The rest of us are beneficiaries and we undoubtedly owe Bob our gratitude just as we do to the Ice-Cream van driver when he pulls up near to our personal location on a hot day and plays his tunes.

But it is perfectly polite, and not in the least obnoxious, to deploy any ideas we might have for his consideration during the time remaining before he is good-for-go on his proposed new-fangled system. And with due humility to have no expectation that he will consider them or be influenced by them.

The Ice-Cream van driver is sick of Ice-Cream. And if Bob is sick of our promiscuous and unruly behavior, I for one, think it a not unreasonable position to take.

Not that I would take such a position. I find it all highly amusing and fear that reductions in promiscuous and unruly behavior would render the site much less so and not unlike a ladies' coffee morning meeting organised to protest against the authorities' lack of protection of the speckle-crested wombat which morphed into a comparison of assets, aesthetic taste and surgical procedures undergone.

Setanta has provided a great deal of entertainment for example and from what I have seen he would be one of the first to be exiled and that would an irreparable loss.

He does speak fairly plainly, despite being up a gum tree on too small a base-plate, and that is the important thing. To a scientific mind at least.

0 Replies

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

The example is too stark.
I don't think I would assert that "proof" exists for that idea on such a basis.

I challenge the concept that it is proper on ANY BASIS
to insist upon issuing unsolicited evaluations of Intellectual ability,
and ESPECIALLY NOT on the basis of whether the poster in question AGREES with u, or not.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING:
It is as if we all have pistols (the Ignore Button) for our personal defense in A2K.
It is a fact (in the real world) that c.80% of people shot (once) with a pistol
SURVIVE their wounds. A2K then issues its participants nuclear ammunition,
resulting in NO survivors of A2K pistols.

I have a very general feeling that we 'd better off
the way we are now (so to speak, with non-nuclear ammunition).

In my humble opinion, its good to be able to forgive someone
and to take him OFF of Ignore, if u later choose to do so, in a magnanious spirit.
IF he has completely vanished, then he will be lost in forgetfullness forever.
In some cases, that is GOOD, but not always.
For instance, maybe 3 years ago, give or take,
I made a joke about an event, an accident that
had befallen the farmer. My humor was not
well-received. He informed me (then) that
he had been afflicted with nightmares
about that event; that accident had affected
him much, much more severely than I thought.
I felt terrible; I did not mean to hurt his feelings.
I only meant to kid around, in a friendly way
with him. He chose to sentence me to 30 days
on his Ignore list. Since then, we have been
on very pleasant, friendly relations -- no strain.

I believe that flexibility shud be preserved.
I don't think that the ONLY option for a bad word
shud necessarily be as DRASTIC, final and permanent
as what now is being contemplated.

Having said that, I wanna acknowledge
that of all the fora in which I post, A2K
is the most convenient and offers
the most comfortable posting environment.

I don't know of any other website
that rises to the level of A2K
in terms of features available
and being what amounts to a
relaxed, cozy, secure cyber-home.

For that, Robert & Jespah have my gratitude.
( Thay don 't even charge us for it. )

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

I challenge the concept that it is proper on ANY BASIS
to insist upon issuing unsolicited evaluations of Intellectual ability,

But it is possible to insist upon issuing unsolicited evaluations of Intellectual ability in a manner which can subtly shade off from crude versions, such as cicerone imposter is habituated to, into word formulations where it is not immediately apparent than an evaluation of intellectual ability has taken place.

Quote:

In my humble opinion, its good to be able to forgive someone
and to take him OFF of Ignore, if u later choose to do so, in a magnanious spirit.

There is a suspicion raised there Dave. It is that the Ignore function is deployed in order to feel good and enjoy the magnanimity of taking it off. Young ladies do that all the time. With a little practice a young man can tell who he has the best chance with by seeing who is ignoring him the most pointedly. The trick is to find an excuse to permit such a display of goodness and magnanimity to take place.

With such a snooty way of drawing attention to herself becoming permanent and the forgiveness inoperable the whole balance of the courtship system would be skewed in favour of men with assets.

I agree with what you say although I never go on any other site and have nothing to compare A2K to.

1 Reply

@spendius,

DAVID wrote:

I challenge the concept that it is proper on ANY BASIS
to insist upon issuing unsolicited evaluations of Intellectual ability,

spendius wrote:

But it is possible to insist upon [????]
issuing unsolicited evaluations of Intellectual ability in a manner which can subtly shade off from crude versions, such as cicerone imposter is habituated to, into word formulations where it is not immediately apparent than an evaluation of intellectual ability has taken place.

Is there some GOOD that comes from that?
I find no need for OCD qua analysis of the mental abilities of acquaintance.
I 'd rather apply my attention to judging the substantive value of their messages.

DAVID wrote:

In my humble opinion, its good to be able to forgive someone
and to take him OFF of Ignore, if u later choose to do so, in a magnanious spirit.

spendius wrote:

There is a suspicion raised there Dave.
It is that the Ignore function is deployed in order
to feel good and enjoy the magnanimity of taking it off.

We shud go out of our way to maximize our FEELING GOOD
and our ENJOYMENT. Do u agree?

spendius wrote:

Young ladies do that all the time.
With a little practice a young man can tell who he has the best
chance with by seeing who is ignoring him the most pointedly.

It did not occur to me to try that.
I went more where I felt more overtly welcomed by friendly overtures.

spendius wrote:

The trick is to find an excuse to permit
such a display of goodness and magnanimity to take place.

U are aware that seeing an Ignored person QUOTED has served that purpose,
depending on what he said in the quote. U know that, right ??

spendius wrote:

With such a snooty way of drawing attention to herself becoming permanent
and the forgiveness inoperable the whole balance of the courtship system
would be skewed in favour of men with assets.

That is not necessarily too good for the target, unless
he makes it a point that she will not financially benefit
from his demise.

David

2 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Is there some GOOD that comes from that?

It is quite good fun. And fun is enjoyable and we agree that it should be maximized whenever possible. And, unlike business, its energy comes without cost to the victim as the internal logic demands. He or she is unaware that their intelligence is being evaluated and thus has no reason to be pissed off as the victims of business have.

It also causes an enhanced sense of what words are capable of. Which might, if only for the purpose of a speculative hypothesis, be the secret source of European success. The ironic.

Deployed clumsily in ye olde daysh it might not be very good in that it might get the incompetent thrown into the stone crusher after having been whipped a bit. (A down thumb and an Ignore are the trickle-down effect in an atavistic but highly attenuated form of the despot's sense of things when suspecting someone of taking the piss).

As one might expect under democratic conditions.

Hence the necessity to get good at it on straight Darwinian principles which were only discovered to be principles long after they had been up and running for many millennimums, usually abbreviated to millennia for reasons of decency.

Quote:

I find no need for OCD qua analysis of the mental abilities of acquaintance.

I do. Particularly with females. They can pretend they are a lot stupider than they actually are and thus lead an innocent man to the joys of domestic bliss as depicted in the Dick Van Dyke show of blessed memory and save him from a life of disgusting, debauched degeneration. And suppose you were an NCO choosing one man to go on a mission with you behind enemy lines in the war to shove two-car garages and fistfuls of 'ology majors up all their silly, unChristian arses.

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

unless he makes it a point that she will not financially benefit
from his demise.

It became a tradition in India to put a man's widow on his funeral pyre. This was the only method they could think of to stop their wives poisoning them or otherwise making away with them.

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Are revenues plummeting, Bob?

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Are revenues plummeting, Bob?

my guess is that he got sick of the whining from the A2K Kool Kids Klub. Even a few years ago many were in his ear wanting A2K to be more like facebook.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Other than TTL I've never had a situation online where if I just stopped talking to someone that didn't make a difference, and they still insisted on talking to me for years without my ever replying.

You seem to have forgotten EpicP from Abuzz. I think I finally managed to block every one of her email addresses. That, or she finally just gave up.

That new blocking feature sounds interesting. I didn't know you could do that.

1 Reply

@roger,

Quote:

That new blocking feature sounds interesting.

interesting good, bad, or neutral? Dont go out on a limb now!

0 Replies

@spendius,

DAVID wrote:

unless he makes it a point that she will not financially benefit
from his demise.

spendius wrote:

It became a tradition in India to put a man's widow on his funeral pyre.
This was the only method they could think of to stop their wives poisoning them
or otherwise making away with them.

OK, now concerning the subject of the forthcoming NUCLEAR POWERED Ignore Button
(if I can characterize it that way): It occurred to me to reply to Spendius
in an obliquely light-hearted, frivolous way about the content of his post
(altho, in real life I have always been HORRIFIED and scandalized by that practice),
but it occurs to me that if I were jaunty or impish in my response,
that might well result in a very permanent capital punishment from A2K,
not necessarily from Spendius himself, but from any member who read my post.
Self-censorship may be more prudent than getting cyber-killed (forever).

When is the change expected to go into effect ?

David

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

unless he makes it a point that she will not financially benefit
from his demise.

spendius wrote:

It became a tradition in India to put a man's widow on his funeral pyre.
This was the only method they could think of to stop their wives poisoning them
or otherwise making away with them.

That sounds like a competent DIS-incentive (for ladies) to getting married.
To me, it seems that it woud not be worth it to the ladies.

However, it seems to me that most ladies have it hard-wired into them
to get married and raise families. Do u ladies agree with that ??

David

0 Replies

Quote:

Assange blasted by expenses whistle-blower
(Philip Welch, Wells Journal, October 18, 2012)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was bitterly criticised by a fellow freedom of information campaigner on Friday night.

Heather Brooke said of the man who used the website to release thousands of secret documents: "I can not think of a more crazed and irrational person.

"He could have changed the whole way we look at government secrecy.

"Tragically he threw that opportunity away."

She was referring to the Afghanistan war logs which Mr Assange insisted on releasing on WikiLeaks without withholding the name of people who became Taliban targets as a result of publication.

"Assange did not respect his sources, which every journalist knows you should," said Heather Brooke.

"He was seduced by power and anyone who challenged him in WikiLeaks was summarily dismissed."

We need transparency in government, the security services, police and military, but "transparency also requires responsibility", she told the audience.

Heather Brooke respected her sources when someone within the Houses of Parliament offered a computer disk of MPs' expenses claims to the press.

This followed her five-year campaign to have details of how MPs spent public money made public.

The resulting scandal was one reason why Wells MP David Heathcoat-Amory lost his seat in the 2010 General Election.

As an American-trained journalist Heather Brooke was amazed how much secrecy surrounded politics in Britain, unlike the USA.

But the digital revolution, in particular the internet, now made checking on those in power much easier because it allowed huge numbers of ordinary people in different places to connect at great speed and form groups.

Freedom of information requests can be made by citizens of authority bodies and such information put on the web.

People in power liked to keep inconvenient facts to themselves and felt that the public could not be trusted.

Information is power "and decisions to restrict information should be challenged," said Heather Brooke.

"We need an Official Disclosure Act so people can be punished for withholding information."

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Quote:

As an American-trained journalist Heather Brooke was amazed how much secrecy surrounded politics in Britain, unlike the USA.

Before Heather gets too excited about these things she might consider Mr Rumsfeld's famous statement.

Quote:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Heather is basically claiming that she has surmounted the latter category. Which is serious hubris. So much so that it might be considered to be a derangement of the wits.

I learned many decades ago that when our chatterers discuss the politics of foreign countries they provide, possibly without intending to, a guide to some of the underhanded stuff going on here which is normally veiled by a under a thick cloud of make-believe.

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

It occurred to me to reply to Spendius
in an obliquely light-hearted, frivolous way about the content of his post
(altho, in real life I have always been HORRIFIED and scandalized by that practice),
but it occurs to me that if I were jaunty or impish in my response,
that might well result in a very permanent capital punishment from A2K,
not necessarily from Spendius himself, but from any member who read my post.

That constitutes a very serious criticism of A2K which I don't think is justified. I hope it is not an excuse for an inability to be jaunty or impish.

Remember Yorick. I happen to think, after that great teacher Francois Rabelais had taught me, that jauntiness and impishness are better than doctor's medicines.

2 Replies

@spendius,

One thing, I am sure of is that no one would likely log onto this website to read Robert postings and if he get his wish to drive off the more interesting posters from this system that he so dislike he will be cutting his own boring throat.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

you say interesting.

I say parasitic and mind numbingly persistent.

1 Reply

WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

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