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What one former slave said in response to his former master's request that he returned to work, after the civil war -- dated August 7, 1865. in reference to: "Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire." - "There Was Never Any Pay-day For the Negroes": Jourdon Anderson Demands Wages ( view on Google Sidewiki )

You don't have to love South Park -- in fact, you can hate it -- but if you live in the free world, you should be willing to defend its right to exist. You should be willing to defend its right to offend, as it does with every episode. That's what free speech is all about. Of course, that free speech also protects those that espouse hate, which South Park does not. (In fact, while it offends, the one thing you can't pin on South Park , is hate. It hates not one. It loves everyone equally, cause it can poke fun at them.) So recently, when South Park aired an episode featuring the Super Best Friends -- namely Buddha, Moses, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Jesus and Sea Man (actually, Semen) -- and censored Muhammad's appearance -- he appears in a U-haul truck, then a bear costume, since it might offend Muslims -- they got some hate directed at them. Specifically, revolutionislam.com got their shorts in a knot, and posted quite the diatribe on their ...

America is unaware of how much of its freedom it has vested in the last few years from public institutions to private corporations, and individuals. Glenn Greenwald just needs to follow the trail -- unravel a not too complicated story, as exampled by Mike McConnell -- a man who moved easily between the government and a corporation, restlessly pursuing a single minded goal: the vesting of American intelligence capability from the government, to corporations. And he has succeeded. The question the public, who pays for all of this, needs to ask is: when does a corporation's self-interest trump the interest of the public it is now charged with serving? The answer is simple. Time and time again, it has been proven -- and it's written into corporate law. A corporation has to service only the interests of its shareholders. Doing anything else, and the management team is in violation of their contractual obligations. And in the intelligence business, peace is not good for busin...

In our first world democracies, the general population nestles under the comfort of apathy, trusting that what our government does, is in our best interest -- in the best interest of our nation, our democracy and the world. Wish that was true. As with most power, the benefits pour to the self-interested -- and caters to the few close our elected officials -- including those elected to serve us. At the end of the day, we're sheep, making the rich, richer -- and the powerful, more powerful, and above the laws that govern the rest of us. That is why, entities such as Wikileaks , exist. In fact, it is one of the few, where the powerful can be challenged and brought to their knees. And you know the powerful self-interest are afraid, when they've declared an open war on Wikileaks. The US government, along with the governments of China, North Korea and Iran -- as well as others, such as Australia and Britain -- are seeking to bring Wikileaks to its knees. Not only have their b...

British libel law is not working, stifles free speech, yet continues to be practiced. To begin with, the law requires the defendant to prove the truth of their statement -- instead of requiring the defamed to prove it false. You can see where this would lead. Anyone who doesn't like what you say and just sue you for libel -- even if they expect you to win, you still lose, as in the case of Simon Singh. The law considers the defendant guilty, until proven innocent. Further, the law can be used to settle scores in foreign countries. For instance, if a magazine article is published in Canada that reflects negatively on an individual -- said individual could sue in British courts for libel, if the magazine was made available for sale in England -- which only requires online access. It's widely acknowledged that British libel laws stifle free speech. The Americans are considering a bill that would make British judgments on libel cases unenforceable in the US -- and the Europe...

It's never too late to be late, and the Saudis are way fucking late. But it's all part of a plan. King Abdullah is trying to move his diseased society forward, one tiny step, without being lynched by one crazy mullah or the other. The plan has been afoot to allow women lawyers to argue some cases in court -- for the first time -- for a few years now. Of course, before we get all emotional over this announcement, we shouldn't forget that the women are educated in the Shariah justice system. (And yes, I realized that I'm being moronic with that sentence. Add a little bit of oxy if you don't get it.) in reference to: BBC News - Saudi women to be allowed to argue cases in court ( view on Google Sidewiki )

In 1804, Haiti was the first nation to outlaw slavery. That is an amazing accomplishment -- but you wouldn't think so if you knew Haiti today. Today, 10% of the most vulnerable population in Haiti, the children, live a life of slavery. Child slaves in Haiti, known as restaveks , number around 300,000. They come from large homes, where parents can't afford to keep them, to homes of affluent family members. Often, these children suffer abuse at the hands of families they are enslaved to. The practice having restaveks has been around since 1804. Lighter skinned Haitians became the ruling class -- and the darker skinned, poorer Haitians, were made to believe that if they couldn't take care of their children, it was acceptable -- and better for the child -- to be shipped off. This has been a widely acceptable practice around the world -- back in the day -- but it shouldn't be, anymore. The root cause of the problem is large families. It's not uncommon for pare...

Bruce Schneier makes a point that you may not want to hear. By giving up our freedoms to fight terrorists, child pornographers and other malcontents, we, the people, have handed the perfect weapon to those who want to eavesdrop on every electronic communication we make. Schneier places the blame not on China, for being able to hack Gmail, but on the western governments, led by the United States, that have passed laws that require technology companies to provide law enforcement officials a backdoor into our email accounts and phone lines. It is no secret that the telecoms in the US corporate with the US government to allow the surveillance of telephone calls across their lines and airwaves -- but what may not be widely known, is that the same is required of Internet services companies. Your email account is not secret from a curious law enforcement official. Ever wonder what else isn't totally secure? If there's a backdoor built to allow anyone access to your private inform...

Yesterday, Freedom House (FH) released it's annual edition of Freedom in the World . And, for the fourth year in a row, freedom around the world suffered another decline. FH recorded declines in 40 countries -- and in 3 of those, their citizens lost electoral freedoms. The assault on freedom came in many forms, with freedom of expression and association being the dominant areas of loss, in addition to violent repression by governments, prison sentences for dissidents, attacks on human rights activists, and, terrorism and insurgence disrupting the general population. Other trends noted by report: Russia, China, Vietnam and Iran, cracking down on frontline human rights defenders; Philippines, Russia, Pakistan, Mexico, Somalia, China, Iran and Azerbaijan, attacking journalists and new media; Guinea, Honduras, Niger and Madagascar, experiencing coups, overthrowing legitimate governments, or extending the rule of existing rulers; and, As if things weren't bad enough, from Afri...

Google is now in the process of reviewing its China operations, and will be discussing with Chinese authorities the how they can remove all filters from their searches and still operate within the law. This all came to head, after Google has been censoring itself for years, after a concerted effort from hackers from China to gain access to Gmail accounts that belong to human rights activists. Google didn't say, but by implication, I'm assuming it was Chinese human rights activists. I've never been too comfortable with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft censoring themselves to operate in China. When I was there recently, I ran a little experiment myself -- nothing that would get me in trouble -- but I used Bing and Google to search in different cities. Amazingly, Google allowed me to find, more or less, some questionable content -- whereas Bing just told me that the search term was restricted and didn't give any results. This move by Google, if taken to its logical end, is ...