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Prints of Darkness: Macabre Vintage Posters

By Disinformation on January 12, 2016 in Art 0

In the early days of disinformation books, we were heading to Chicago, then the site of the book industry’s annual trade fair, when we were contacted by a fan who wanted to throw a party for us. Not being the kind of people who look gift horses in the eye, we accepted, and thus began a beautiful friendship with Thomas Negovan, one of the art world’s most innovative gallerists. Tom’s gallery, Century Guild, has since moved to Los Angeles and continues to champion some of our favorite artists, not least Gail Potocki.

The Guardian profiles Century Guild’s Art Macabre collection:

Before TV and radio, the main way of reaching the public was with large, eye-catching posters. Theatre, silent film and opera would be advertised with colourful images fixed to walls or fences. Most have been lost or destroyed, but Los Angeles art gallery Century Guild has a collection of peculiar and macabre prints from Germany, Austria, France and Italy dating back to 1880-1890.

… Read the rest

Metadata Comes Home With New ‘Threat Score’ Policing Tools

By Nadia Prupis on January 12, 2016 in News 0

Police in the U.S. are rolling out new technology that gives them “unprecedented” power to spy on citizens and determine their “threat score” based on metadata, the Washington Postreported on Monday.

Fresno, California’s police department was one of the first to adopt the software, known as “Beware,” which allows officers to analyze “billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and…social-media postings” to calculate an individual’s alleged potential for violence, the Post explained.

Officers say the tool, made by a company called Intrado, can help them thwart mass shootings and other attacks like the ones that took place in Paris and San Bernardino last year. But critics say it’s just another weapon in the mass surveillance arsenal, one that further threatens privacy and civil liberties and fuels police overreach.

Journalist D. Brian Burghart, who operates FatalEncounters.org, a searchable database of police killings of citizens, told Common Dreams that the swell of surveillance technology was an “outgrowth” of post-9/11 fear-mongering.… Read the rest

Political Incorrectness and the World of Trump

By @brianctaylor on January 12, 2016 in Politics 0

Merriam-Webster defines political correctness as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.”

This isn’t the first definition available to me, upon my Google search but the other two were not entirely correct. This is because political correctness (PC) as a thing shifts, grows and changes. Dynamic definitions are not a particularly new phenomenon. In ye olden days, for instance, one might conspire to collect faggots with a gay friend, with nary an eyebrow raised. Such is it with ours, or any other language. Things change. Tastes change. Meanings change. (“Faggots” here being bundles of kindling and “gay” meaning happy.)

I would be remiss not to point out the other two definitions of PC I googled, they’re relevant:

“The avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”

Well, that’s pretty telling.… Read the rest

Defending Digital Privacy, 200+ Groups & Experts Decry Global Attack on Encryption

By Nadia Prupis on January 12, 2016 in Science/Technology 0

A coalition of cyber activists and advocacy groups from 42 countries on Monday released a letter defending encryption and calling on governments to end efforts at undermining such digital privacy tools.

“Encryption tools, technologies, and services are essential to protect against harm and to shield our digital infrastructure and personal communications from unauthorized access,” reads the letter, a project of digital rights group Access Now and signed by organizations such as the ACLU, Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Human Rights Watch, and La Quadrature du Net, among nearly 200 others.

“As we move toward connecting the next billion users, restrictions on encryption in any country will likely have global impact,” the letter continues. “Encryption and other anonymizing tools and technologies enable lawyers, journalists, whistleblowers, and organizers to communicate freely across borders and to work to better their communities. It also assures users of the integrity of their data and authenticates individuals to companies, governments, and one another.”

U.S.… Read the rest

Bill Hicks with the Good News

By Bobby Campbell on January 12, 2016 in Entertainment 0

Bobby Campbell (CC by 2.0)

… Read the rest

Man beset by bedbugs sets apartment ablaze

By Marcie Gainer on January 12, 2016 in News 0

tom spinker (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

After my bout with bedbugs in NYC, I definitely wanted to burn everything. Luckily my infestation wasn’t that bad, but I did use a lot of 91% rubbing alcohol… on everything. Also food grade diatomaceous earth worked like a charm (in case you find yourself in this unfortunate situation).

Bedbug psychosis is real, people. And the little buggers are making a comeback…

Daniel Bethencourt via USA Today:

The fire started at around 4:30 a.m. Sunday at the St. Antoine Gardens apartment complex in Midtown Detroit. That’s when the man thought bedbugs had returned to his apartment and sprayed alcohol on his couch and body in an attempt to destroy them, said Dan Austin, a mayor’s office spokesman.

But then, while sitting on the alcohol-doused couch, the man lit a cigarette and also tried to set one of the bedbugs on fire, Austin said. That caused the couch to catch fire, along with the man’s body.

… Read the rest

Coincidence Control Network: File #94 – Shattering the PO PO!

By kensittingnow on January 12, 2016 in Podcasts 0

This week: Get your dabs on, loads of film banter, predict your future with Dale Cooper, Ants are rad, killing Napoleon, the fake Jihad hotline, and much more.

Personnel – Frater Isla, Joe Nolan, and Ken Eakins

Linkywinks:

Shattering the po-po – Link
New Island In the Distant Japan! Link
Twin Peaks Tarot Link
Scientology perma-banned from Russia – Link
Ants Building Bridges Link
The Chemist Who Killed Napoleon Link
1-800-Jihad – Link
Sci-Fi Trip Link
New LSD doc Link

Aafat – Bollywood Bloodbath

… Read the rest

Heads Up Disinfonauts: New Disinfo.com Coming This Week

By The Skeptic Overlord on January 11, 2016 in News 0

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything,” George Bernard Shaw. As some of you will recall, we’ve bee working on a completely revamped Disinfo.com behind the scenes. Today we can showcase screen shots of the functioning new Disinfo.com, which is ready for launch later this week. We’ve previously showcased three different iterations of the design below, and this current and final version showcases a great deal of major adjustments, and minor tweaks. Many of the refinements have come from your feedback, so thank you. In addition to the new design, there are some additional features for both readers and authors.

… Read the rest

Strange Tales of Homeland Security and the Future of Mass Surveillance (Part One: Welcome to Gudavia)

By Robert Guffey on January 11, 2016 in Op-Ed 0

According to Pew Research, the respectability of the brand name known as the United States appears to be locked in freefall. Let’s begin with a brief excerpt from Andrea Peterson’s 7-14-14 Washington Post article entitled “America’s ‘Freedom’ Reputation Is on the Decline a Year after NSA Revelations”:

“A main selling point of the U.S. brand on the international stage has long been summed up with the screech of eagles and one word: ‘Freedom.’ But in the wake of the revelations about U.S. surveillance programs from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year, the world is less convinced of the U.S.’s respect for personal freedoms according to new survey results from Pew Research.

“The Snowden revelations appear to have damaged one major element of America’s global image: its reputation for protecting individual liberties. In 22 of 36 countries surveyed in both 2013 and 2014, people are significantly less likely to believe the U.S.… Read the rest

Benghazi and Life During Wartime

By Salvadore Ritchie on January 11, 2016 in News 0

“Talking to you right now, I might get captured, because of the phone call, I might be tortured. I might be killed. It’s a possibility.”

This is the story of Muhammad. He lives in Benghazi. He lives in the middle of a war.

I struggled with how I was going to start this article after speaking withMuhammad. Before talking with him I naively knocked around ideas about how we (for more than a year) traded critiques on books and quotes and poetry, how we shared an interest in various writers and how that would be a perfectly appropriate salvo into an opening paragraph. I had a ridiculous sitcom style outline about how we might be from different parts of the world but there are some things like good literature that can transcend any given situation. That’s all garbage.

After speaking with Muhammad, I realized how silly and detached I was from the realities of what happens at a human level during wartime.… Read the rest

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