SMOKE NAZIS
On the March in: Chicago
Smoke Nazis in the Chicago area rolled over the right of free association, when they forced attendees to the Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show to go outside to smoke.
At the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show in St. Charles, IL, attendees have been told that, due to a statewide smoking ban that went into effect in January, they may not light up even though theirs is a private gathering of only willing participants. This, despite the fact that the conventioneers bent over backwards to try to reach an accommodation.
There was a time--years in the past--when one could volunteer for the American Cancer Society fund raisers without feeling like a fascist. Now, the ACS is one of the leading components of the Nanny State.
Mike Grady, the ACS's Illinois director of public policy, illustrated the Cancer Society's belief that they are on the side of right--and your rights be damned.
"This is the first time we've seen such a blatant attempt . . . to actually undermine the law through legal sophistry. We're very happy with the outcome. This is the perfect example that the law is being enforced."
Some officials are more insufferable than--cancer?
At least in Illinois, the smoking ban was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. They can be held accountable for their actions in the next election.
In many locales, smoking bans are administered by Health Departments and Health Boards: groups of unelected officials who can write citations, levy fines and, in some cases, order jail time for offenders. In these cases, voters have no recourse.
Fascist Tactics
Writing on a different topic, Doan Boal did a paper that compared the tactics of the Nazis in Germany and the anti-gun movement in America. His paper examined the "comparison of Nazi propaganda techniques and those used by the powerful anti-firearms-ownership movement in America..."
Boal found more than a few similarities in tactics. He might well have been comparing the Smoke Nazis to the original ones.
Among the articles of faith for the Smoke Nazis are:
1- The belief that they are smarter than you.
2- They know what's best for each individual.
3- The free market of ideas and minds is too messy. Better that laws and regulations are passed and the punitive power of the state is applied to unbelievers.
4- They believe in the power of re-education.
5- They are frightened that people may make the wrong decisions if left to their own devices.
These were also some of the tactics used in Germany in the 1930s.
Anti-smoking officials and agents are part of the larger Politically Correct crowd: both are concerned with regulating behavior and thought.
People standing on the sideline lose whenever they allow the Smoke and Health Nazis to take away their neighbors' freedoms. They lose because their freedoms will likely be next.
Count on it. Ask yourself three simple question:
1 "If every last smoker in the USA quit today and never smoked again, would all of the overzealous public health officials harassing smokers, suddenly find meaning to their lives?"
2 "Or would they find another behavior to demonize, repress and regulate?"
3 "What are the next personal activities to be targeted by the Smoke/Health Nazis?"
Smoking, by some estimates, kills 434,000 people a year in the USA.
To paraphrase Emiliano Zapata, "I'd rather die--smoking, wheezing, coughing--on my feet than live on my knees."
Smoke Nazis are all about control.
If you're in doubt about the validity of the above statement, ask the convention goers at the Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show.
by Mondoreb
image: RidesAPaleHorse
Sources:
* Tobacco, Tolerance and Truth
* Pipe Smokers Huff and puff over smoking ban
* The Anti-Tobacco Nazis
* HCI Tactics and Nazi Tactics
* blackrosebooks
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And the "Botnets" who control the world's spam...
Police in the northwestern suburb of Chicago in Arlington Heights are warning residents of a new kind of spam on the internet, death threats via email.
The spam emails demand money, sums of either $15,000 or $20,000, or the recipients will face death.
According to the police, if the recipient responds to the email the sender would be able to acquire the IP protocol address which would "jeopardize" the spam victim's banking and credit info.
Investigator Chuck Buczynski said there was no need for concern, that the email was "spam" and to not open it.
Spam is known as junk mail sent to people's email addresses on the web. According to the New Zealand Herald, 85% of the world's spam is controlled by a groups of botnets:
Marshal's TRACE team, which monitors spam, phishing and virus activity around the world, has identified the six botnets that it says are sending the bulk of spam.
Botnets are virtual networks of private computers that are secretly controlled and used to distribute malware or viruses to other machines. Owners of such infected machines are almost never aware their computers are being used maliciously.One botnetwork, known as Mega-D, is alleged to have 35,000 machines under its control.
A recent spate of emails pretending to be from the Department of Justice have resurfaced from last summer:
The latest batch contains an image from the DoJ website, which contributes to its apparent legitimacy, Masiello said. The spoofed emails also contain a keylogger that once downloaded onto a recipient's computer, collects personal information, such as the user's bank account numbers and passwords.
Similar-style attacks should continue as tax rebate checks begin arriving, Masiello said. "As the tax rebates begin arriving in the May/June timeframe, we'll likely see additional spoofs apparently from the government." Source - SC Magazine
Arlington Heights is an affluent village which lies 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago with a population close to 180,000 residents. To date only 3 recipients have reported receiving the extortionist spam.
By LBG
Image - Boles
Source - Chicago Tribune
Source - Wiki
Source - New Zealand Herald
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Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Forty-four years after it happened, details continue to come to light about the assassination and the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
World Net Daily has a story of more intrigue: an attempted whistle-blower in the form of a secret service agent; the agent's imprisonment; the recanting of the testimony of a key witness against the agent; and, the story of another November plot to assassinate JFK.
From JFK assassination plot uncovered in Chicago?:Ex-Secret Service agent reveals tip caused president to change travel plans 3 weeks before Dallas shooting
More food for thought for both those interested in full disclosure of the JFK story's details and JFK conspiracy theorists.
Former agent Abraham Bolden, 72, told Chicago ABC affiliate, WLS-TV, Kennedy was waved off from a much-publicized visit to Chicago on Nov. 2, 1963, to attend the Army-Air Force football game at Soldier Field and ride in a parade after the Secret Service received a report from a motel manager who told of seeing several automatic weapons with telescopic sights on the bed of a room rented to several Cuban nationals. They had an outline of the route Kennedy was to follow from O'Hare airport that would take his motorcade past the motel. The route had been printed in Chicago newspapers.
Bolden, a former Illinois state trooper, was the first black agent to protect a president.
The Secret Service was already uneasy about the presidential visit because an outspoken critic of the president, Thomas Vallee, had arranged to take off work for Kennedy's visit. Vallee was arrested before the planned visit with an M1 rifle, a handgun and 3,000 rounds of ammunition in his possession.
News of the Cuban nationals triggered an investigation but, Bolden charges, the surveillance was mishandled and the Cuban suspects disappeared and were never identified.
"No one was sent to the room to fingerprint it or get an ID. The case was lost and that was the end of it," he said. The day of the planned flight from Washington, D.C., with a suspected Cuban hit team somewhere in Chicago, the Secret Service urged a change of plans.
Bolden tried to come forward at the time, but his story about the assassination attempt and the bungling by officials was overshadowed by another story: that of a secret service agent arrest for bribery.
"The morning of the game, the special agent in charge of the Chicago office called the White House and recommended the president cancel his trip to Chicago," Bolden said.
News reports at the time blamed the change in plans on illness and a diplomatic crisis. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated in Saigon on that same day.
But Bolden told WLS-TV neither illness nor crisis were the reason plans were changed – JFK stayed away from Chicago because of the suspected assassination plot.
It was hard for Bolden to make much noise from a prison cell.Following Kennedy's murder in Dallas three weeks later, Bolden said he tried to inform the Warren Commission of the Chicago plot and misconduct by Secret Service agents, including on-duty drunkenness, but his efforts were thwarted when he was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to prison for soliciting a bribe from a counterfeiter.
This story is an illustration of the times: with so many sources of media available to people--the Internet and blogosphereare bit two--it's hard to imagine the story staying out of the public eye today.
Bolden, who served six years, claims he was set up to silence his criticism of agents' behavior and is hoping to clear his name after the main witness against him recanted his testimony.
The same media voices who chastise the blogosphere as some sort of irresponsible "Wild West" environment are the same ones who left this story unreported for years.
There's a difference between the media of 1963 and the media of 2007.
It's the difference between having 5 or 6 points of view and having a choice of thousands.
Given his choice between the sanctimonious gatekeepers of Traditional Media and today's Internet news resources, Abraham Bolden would probably cast his vote for the "Wild West".
by Mondoreb
[hat tip: pat]
[image:prisonplanet]
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
