Benton

This is what it feels like to be a teacher.
Sometimes.

Fett & Fuzzy

Fett & Fuzzy by Kelly Kerrigan

via

Available to purchase at etsy

It's too damn hot

It's really, really hot. I got a lift into town, but about a kilometre from a tram stop. It was hot.

''EPIC WIN''

by =Fooray 

I've got a bad feeling about this

[via Set Phasers To LOL]

SOPA condemned by web giants as 'internet blacklist bill'

from The Guardian by Dominic Rushe

Google, Twitter and eBay say controversial Stop Online Piracy Act would give US authorities too much power over websites. Internet giants went on the attack on Wednesday, claiming legislation aimed at tackling online piracy would create an "internet blacklist bill" that would encourage censorship, kill jobs and give US authorities unrivalled powers over the world's websites. Internet firms including Wikipedia owner Wikimedia, eBay, Google, Twitter and others protested as Congress discussed the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now passing through Washington. The act aims to tackle online piracy by giving the US Justice Department new powers to go after websites, both domestically and abroad, that host disputed copyright material. The act would allow the US to effectively pull the plug on websites and go after companies that support them technically or through payment systems. A vote on the bill could come as early as next month.

Maria Pallante, register of copyrights, told the committee: "As we all know, the internet harbours a category of bad faith actors whose very business models consist of infringing copyright in American books, software, movies, and music with impunity.” She said these "rogue" sites were the "dark side of the internet", and that while American authors, publishers, and producers had been asked to invest in online commerce, "in critical circumstances we have left them to compete with thieves." SOPA would redress the balance she claimed by "ensuring that our law keeps pace with infringers." She said the act would requires "all key members of the online ecosystem, including service providers, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks, to play a role in protecting copyright interests".

Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat and one of the bill's sponsors, dismissed as "hyperbolic" charges the bill "will open the floodgates to government censorship." He said the comments belittled "the circumstances under which true victims of tyrannical governments actually live." The act has powerful support from the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and drug companies keen for a crackdown on online pharmacies undercutting US sales. But it has met with almost universal criticism from the tech community. Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser, blacked out its name on its home page in an anti-SOPAprotest, as did Reddit, the social news site. Tumblr launched a page attacking the act, and firms including AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Zynga criticised SOPA in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. "We support the bills' stated goals – providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding US internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites," the firms wrote. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cyber-security."

In a blog post, Google said: "We strongly support the goal of the bill – cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods – but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression." Art Bordsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public policy group, said SOPA was "the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop" and that the bill as it stands would have "terrible consequences" for the internet. "The international aspects alone are very worrying," he said. "It appears that the US is taking control of the entire world. The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to potentially take action against it."

At present, if Facebook, YouTube, or other leading websites are found to be holding copyright material without permission, then they are told to take it down. SOPA would make it possible for the US to block the website. Such far-reaching powers could kill smaller firms and put off investors from financing new companies, said Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Fight For The Future, a lobbying group. "Everybody uses the internet every day, these days. Everyone realises how important freedom is online. This isn't just for geeks anymore," he said. "The worst part of this bill is that the vast majority of the damage will be invisible – it will be all the companies that never start because this bill has effectively killed them."

Many of you have heard of a bill that may be passed in the U.S.A. that will effectively take away many of the privileges of the internet.

What does this mean for you?

Well basically, if this bill goes through, you can say goodbye to this blog.

I won’t fill up your dashboard with another lengthy explanation about what this bill does, but you can read about it here and read it in full here.

For more information:

American Censorship Day
The White House Petition 
Tumblr’s Protect The Net
Change.org

Rebecca McKinnon in NYT: SOPA will strengthen the Great Firewall of China

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

James Losey from New American Foundation says, "Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Beijing Bureau Chief and now a researcher focusing on the intersection of the Internet, human rights, and foreign policy warns that the Stop Online Piracy Act introduces Chinese style censorship to the United States in a New York Times op-ed:"

China operates the world's most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China's Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.

The legislation (the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act) has an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world."

Stop the Great Firewall of America

Seems reasonable

Connect the dots

[via] NSFW

R.A.M.O.N.E.S.

[VIA]

Breakfast Club Animated Gif

Boba Chicken

[via]

Right turn clyde

[via]

Animated Tron Gif

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Funny Fail Games Music Pictures Silly Velociraptors Cute Cats Kittens ACTA Kardashian

Everybody’s Working for the Weekend

[via]

Alfred' Hitchcock's cure for insomnia

Gentleman's Duel

"Gentlemens duel" seen via Gifbin

It's a cloud eat cloud world

"It’s a cloud-eat-cloud world" by David Huyck aka Skedrawdles

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search Say There's An Intruder In Building, But It's Just A Drill

By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:30 pm Monday, Oct 24 via boingboing.net

[Video Link] Police and school administrators Wolcott High School in Connecticut tricked students and teachers into believing a dangerous intruder had come into the school building and ordered a lockdown. It was a ruse for a drug sweep of the lockers. No drugs were found. In the video, the police and Wolcott school superintendent Joseph Macary serve a large pile of steaming horseshit to defend their reckless stunt. As kehfysik says in the comments: "The teaching point here is that they can not trust the people into whose care they are given. The authorities will lie to you and try to use fear to control you. I hope the kids learn this."

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms. Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows.

But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls.

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search (Via The Agitator)

Here's another version:

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search

Say There's An Intruder In Building, But It's Just A Drill

October 22, 2011|Rick Green articles.courant.com

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms. Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows. But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls. Drug-free schools are an admirable goal but I wonder when we reached the point where the war on drugs justifies police searches under the ruse of a Virginia Tech-style attack. What on earth could authorities in Wolcott be thinking?

School officials told me it was a routine lockdown drill, the kind that schools are required to do. "We wanted to practice,'' said Superintendent of Schools Joseph McCary. "We said there was a lockdown with an intruder inside. Doors are locked, shades are drawn and the lights are turned off and students are told to move to a corner of the room." "After 10 minutes we say this is a drill and at that point we started a search for drugs,'' McCary said. "We are providing a safe and secure nurturing environment." [my emphasis] No drugs turned up in the search. An email from the high school to parents explained the event, without mentioning the intruder story. It was described as a "lockdown intervention drill" where "two police dogs swept the hallway lockers, locker rooms and the student parking lot.''

Bringing in police dogs to search for drugs in student lockers, while not common, isn't the real outrage here. It's understandable why adults feel they must do something about drug abuse. It's the trickery and tactics that seem more suited to a police sting operation than a public school. "I don't think the school administration and police department have any right to mislead these kids, under any circumstances, to conduct a public safety drill," said Carl Glendening, a parent of two high school students. "The kids are told there is an intruder and there is a lockdown and then they see cops coming in with dogs." "Some kids were freaked out by it. The notion of Columbine was in the back of their minds,'' Glendening said. "We didn't think this through clearly." "They are kids. They are students. They are not there to be used."

Andrew Schneider, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, called it a "terrible policy. It will cause more trouble in the long run. Young people will learn not to trust the police." "It's a terrible civics lesson." While state law requires schools to have regular emergency drills, drug-sniffing-dog searches are up to the individual school district. Canton schools recently attracted attention for surprise drug searches using dogs. "The whole issue of search and seizure, you have to have reasonable suspicion, such as if they have had other issues in where the administration feels there's a drug problem in the school,'' said Vincent Mustaro of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. "This is one of those policies we consider optional."

School officials say it's not as if they think there's a drug problem in Wolcott. Bringing the dogs in "is precautionary," said school board Chairwoman Patricia Najarian, who added that she didn't see a problem with the fake intruder story. "Maybe there's a few people who get nervous. When we say it's a surprise drill, it's a surprise drill,'' she said. "We have a very active group of citizens against substance abuse." The drug search is "something that is good to do periodically. It says we don't have drugs in the school,'' she said. "Either way it's a win-win. I know people get concerned … there seems to be an overreaction." McCary, the Wolcott superintendent, said they want to teach students to take their safety seriously, so making them think it was real was essential. "If you say it's just a drill, would you move as quickly?" He makes a point, except that we don't set fires to get students to take fire drills more seriously. There's also another issue. If you say something important to teenagers and you want them to trust you, it's better not to lie.

Punctuation

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