politics | Steve Woods

One American can’t do irony

26/08/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

Last week this blog featured a post entitled America does irony (posts passim). However, your ‘umble scribe perhaps ought to have prefaced the title with the qualifying Some of… as rules that are not hard and fast have exceptions to them.

And here we come to a very big exception: namely the disgraced former 45th president of the United States, convicted felon, insurrectionist, adjudicated business fraudster, confirmed sexual predator, perpetual liar and serial golf cheat one Donald John Trump.

Anyone with two working brain cells and a hole in their backside can see the ridiculousness of The Donald’s position, even though the man himself – in the loosest sense of the word – is totally unaware of the fool he is making of himself, against which the so-called Bushisms, i.e. those unconventional statements, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, and semantic or linguistic errors made in the public speaking of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, look positively endearing. But then again, George Dubya is another Republican…
America does irony

22/08/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

A common misconception about US citizens is that Americans en bloc cannot do irony.

This is known as stereotyping, i.e. people attributing a set idea they have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong.

The stereotyping was misproved (yet again!) earlier this week by the post below on the former social media site now known as X (mostly for the rating of its content. Ed.) in relation to the disgraced 45th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump.

In the dictionary irony is defined as follows:

a situation in which something which was intended to have a particular result has the opposite or a very different result.

Anyone who does come out with the ‘Americans can’t do irony‘ phrase needs to look up what a national or ethnic stereotype is. 😀
Ambushed by donkeys and a lettuce

14/08/2024 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

Today’s Guardian reports that Britain’s shortest-serving former prime minister, one Mary Elizabeth Truss, stormed off the stage at a book promotion event after being upstaged by a lettuce banner which dropped from the flies.

The banner bore the phrase “I crashed the economy” below a picture of a lettuce.

Truss was at Beccles Hall in Suffolk promoting her memoir, Ten Years to Save The West, once described as “the work of a failed politician whose historical legacy will be the unprecedented shortness of her premiership“, when the incident happened.

Campaign group Led By Donkeys had arranged the stunt and publicised it via its account on the Muskrat’s X-rated social media platform.

And here’s the video footage in all its (ahem) glory.

For once, Truss had no difficulty finding how to get off the stage; this has not always been the case.

In response to the stunt, Truss reportedly remarked:

What happened last night was not funny. Far-left activists disrupted the event, which then had to be stopped for security reasons. This is done to intimidate people and suppress free speech.

I won’t stand for it.

According to The Independent, Conservative political commentator Tim Montgomerie advised: “Liz Truss would be well advised to learn to laugh at herself”.
FSFE intervenes in Apple vs. EU Commission

13/08/2024 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech, Uncategorized

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is intervening in litigation brought by Apple against the European Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Apple is seeking to avoid Digital Markets Act obligations related to its App Store and the interoperability of its operating system. The FSFE’s mission is to protect free Ssoftware against monopolistic corporate control.

The CJEU has officially allowed the FSFE to intervene in the litigation brought by Apple against the European Commission to avoid being designated as a ‘gatekeeper’ under the Digital Markets Act. The company has pursued an aggressive policy against software freedom and interoperability, seeking to deter enforcement of the DMA – a law designed to increase fairness and competitiveness in digital markets by regulating the economic behaviour of very large tech companies.

Dr. Martin Husovec, the FSFE’s counsel, remarked, “Becoming an intervener in this case is crucial as the FSFE is representing the civil society perspective, which enriches the judicial proceedings. This allows the court to make fully informed decisions”.

The FSFE’s intervention aims to uphold the application of the DMA to Apple, voicing the concerns of the free software community against the Apple’s unfair practices. Free software projects are disproportionately affected by the company’s monopolistic practices. fee policies, strict vendor lock-in, prohibition on side-loading and the restriction on alternative app stores on Apple devices.

By admitting the FSFE to the proceedings, the court stated that “the case is likely to have a significant impact on […] the supply of free software, free exchange of information and equal chances in accessing software”. Besides, the court recognised that if the EU Commission’s designation decision were to be annulled, […] “such a result would have an impact on the ability of the developers of applications or free software to interconnect their applications free of charge with Apple’s operating system iOS, which, in turn, would affect [the] FSFE’s ability to further and distribute such software to as wide a public as possible”.

The next step for the FSFE is to submit its arguments by mid-September.
Bristol says no to hate

08/08/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

It was a tense day in Bristol yesterday. There were reports that fascist thugs were planning to ‘demonstrate’ against a legal practice specialising in immigration cases in the Old Market area. Lots of local businesses saw no alternative but to shut up shop early and board up their windows.

Fortunately, things turned out differently: 2,000 lovely Bristolians packed West and Old Market Streets; the fascists stayed away and a party atmosphere prevailed.

Even away from the focus of the demonstration there was some tension in the air, particularly where your ‘umble scribe lives in Easton, one of Bristol’s most diverse (in all senses) areas. Local shops in St Mark’s Road and the local community centre shut up early in anticipation of possible trouble, particularly as it was suspected the fascists were planning to march along Stapleton Road.

As it happened, no march occurred either. Even if it had, there were lots of small knots of local residents keeping an eye out for trouble on the streets, especially in the vicinity of the mosque in St Mark’s Road.

Also outside the mosque, your correspondent spotted two elderly white people sitting quietly on chairs, one holding a placard reading Bristol says no to hate. By the manner of their protest, your correspondent reckons they might have been Quakers.

When they left, they abandoned their placard on the women’s entrance to the mosque.

Bristol, you should be proud of your citizens today,
Auntie aids fascist rioters

31/07/2024 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

On Monday an horrific attack took place in Southport at a children’s dance class in which three young girls were deprived of life.

The victims had been attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class for children aged up to 11. Taylor Swift herself responded as follows to the news.

A seventeen year-old youth was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, although his motives remain unclear.

The BBC went to the trouble of reporting the suspect’s ethnicity.

The BBC can report that the teenage suspect, whose parents are from Rwanda, was born in Cardiff and moved to the Southport area in 2013.

It is at this point that questions arise as to why did the BBC point out that although the suspect is a British citizen, he is of African heritage, a fact that was sure to inflame the extreme right.

A vigil was planned near the scene of the attack on Tuesday evening. At about 19.45 hrs, it was followed by violent disorder in which those involved set alight cars, threw bricks at a local mosque, damaged a local convenience store and set wheelie bins on fire. The rioters are believed to have been members of the English Defence League (EDL).

After the riot, questions were asked including the one below by tax campaigner and top-flight accountant Richard Murphy.

Meanwhile in Scotland, The National reports that SNP leader Hamza Yousef has written to the Home Secretary demanding that the EDL be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, as well as posting the following on X/Twitter this morning.

Violence targeting police officers, the public, and mosques, all to drive forward the far-right’s hateful ideology.

Rhetoric is not enough.

We need to take action against the far-right. I have asked the Home Secretary to use her powers to proscribe the English Defence League.
Newspaper gives fascist geography lesson

22/07/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media
An interesting mini-drama has played out on social media this morning in the wake of incumbent US president Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the impending campaign in that country’s presidential election.

The dramatis personae are as follows:
- Johannes Huber, a member of the far-right AfD party who serves as a member of the Federal Parliament (MdB); and
- The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), one of Germany’s major newspapers.
In common with the characteristics of the species homo politicus, i.e. approaching each and every subject with an open mouth, Huber took one look at the news of Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the forthcoming US presidential election (called a general election in the USA. Ed.), got straight on to X/Twitter to post the words ‘Biden is not my President!’.

Note the exclamation mark. 😀

This enabled the FAZ to reply sarcastically to the MdB in question ‘Dear Johannes Huber MP, correct, your president is Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Best wishes‘, giving him both a timely geography lesson reminding him not so subtly that he is in fact a German citizen.

Meanwhile in the actual presidential campaign itself, Biden has formally endorsed his vice-president Kamala Harris to be the Democrats’ candidate; and Harris looks like she’s relishing the prospect of putting victim-playing egomaniac and disgraced former president Donald John Trump in his place.

Ouch!

The next few months promise to be interesting times indeed.
Crowdstrike and Microsoft – culprit identified

19/07/2024 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Security, Social Media, Tech

The BBC reports that a massive IT outage is causing chaos around the world, affecting airports, railways, broadcasters and untold companies..

Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike Holdings has admitted that the problem was caused by a dodgy update to its software which is allegedly designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from hacking.

At the same time, Microsoft has said it is taking “mitigation action” to deal with “the lingering impact” of the outage.

Although Crowdstrike has admitted liability, social media had long since decided who was to blame and where.

This is Alan Ferrier on Mastodon, who wins the prize for the best attribution of blame.

The disaster known as Mary Elizabeth Truss was ousted from her comfy job misrepresenting the long-suffering burghers of Norfolk at the 4th July election. She was recently seen at the extreme right-wing Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the perpetual victim, one Donald John Trump, has been anointed its presidential candidate despite his being a convicted felon 34 times over, confirmed business fraudster, document thief, adjudicated sexual predator, congenital liar, oath breaker and golf cheat.
Auntie prefers football to politics

17/07/2024 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

Yesterday’s The Jouker column in The National highlights a prime example of a colonial attitude in the media of the Untied Kingdom.

There were two two significant resignations on Tuesday, but as The Jouker points out, football – and English football at that – was prioritised on the BBC News website ahead of a major political development in Caerdydd, capital of England’s oldest colony.

That resignation was of the disgraced First Minister of Cymru, Vaughan Gething, who amongst other things, had refused to step down after, inter alia, losing a vote of confidence and accepting a £200,000 “donation” from a “businessman” convicted of environmental crimes. Gething’s hand was forced by a mass outbreak of ministerial resignations similar to that which ended the premiership of disgraced former alleged party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Although he’d only been First Minister since March, when the BBC did finally send its political editor down the M4/Great Western railway line to Caerdydd, Chris Mason did helpfully point pout that Gething’s term of office was 2.4 times longer than that of another British premier, one Mary Elizabeth Truss, the ultimate free marketeer whose polices were roundly rejected by the, er, market.

The resignation story which took precedence yesterday was that of England football manager Gareth Southgate who managed to get his team to two consecutive European Football Championship finals, yet still disappointed the jingoistic English media by failing (yet again) to win a chunk of international silverware like his predecessor in 1966, Alf Ramsey.

Why should football take priority over politics? Critics on social media were not slow to notice the choice of priorities made in London, i.e. that only England matters and Wales is a lesser concern, as has been the case ever since Henry VIII’s 16th century Acts of Union.

There is however precedence for this attitude and it comes from another footballer; and one that is one of Scotland’s greatest football exports, Bill Shankly, who was manager of Liverpool FC from 1959 to 1974, a length of tenure of office which modern football managers can only dream of.

Shankly is famously on record as rating the importance of football as follows:

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.

The above quote from Shankly can be found here with plenty of others from the sage of Anfield.
Commission sends preliminary findings to X for DSA breach

12/07/2024 Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech
Today the EU Commission has informed X – the declining social media platform formerly known as Twitter – of its preliminary view that the company is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.

Based on an in-depth investigation that included, inter alia, the analysis of internal company documents, interviews with experts, as well as cooperation with national Digital Services Coordinators, the Commission has issued preliminary findings of non-compliance with the DSA on three grievances:
- First, X designs and operates its interface for the “verified accounts” with the “Blue checkmark” in a way that does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users. Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status, it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users.
- Second, X does not comply with the required transparency on advertising, as it does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository, but instead put in place design features and access barriers that make the repository unfit for its transparency purpose towards users. In particular, the design does not allow for the required supervision and research into emerging risks brought about by the distribution of advertising online.
- Third, X fails to provide access to its public data to researchers in line with the conditions set out in the DSA. In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service. In addition, X’s process to grant eligible researchers access to its application programming interface (API) appears to dissuade researchers from carrying out their research projects or leave them with no other choice than to pay disproportionally high fees.
If the Commission’s preliminary views were to be confirmed, the Commission would adopt a non-compliance decision finding that X is in breach of Articles 25, 39 and 40(12) of the DS, which could entail fines of up to 6% of X’s total worldwide annual turnover and order the provider to take measures to address the breach. A non-compliance decision may also trigger an enhanced supervision period to ensure compliance with the measures the provider intends to take to remedy the breach. The Commission can also impose periodic penalty payments to compel a platform to comply.

Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market said:

Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA. We also consider that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defence — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.

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