By Nathan Barton
A recent story states that a Dallas-area media reporter-writer has gotten the FBI to arrest a man in Maryland for sending him a tweet that triggered a epileptic seizure, which was a known hazard for the journalist. The Dallas News reports that Eichenwald’s attorney compared the incident to mailing a bomb or an envelope with anthrax spores to someone. The federal charges are “cyberstalking.”
Based on the reports of evidence supposedly gathered from the accused stalker’s on-line records, it appears to be an actual attempt to do harm to the Dallas reporter/commentator. Eichenwald claims that forty people sent him strobes after they discovered that strobe lights could trigger seizures.
Knowing very little about this, I don’t know whether or not you have to open a tweet in order to see something that clearly is more than a few words (the infamous 140-character with spaces protocol). Can you send videos? A still photo could not (as far as I know) produce a strobe effect. (Apparently you CAN send videos, according to CNN – if you believe CNN.) But I suspect that you have to turn on the video when you receive it. Continue reading
With St. Patrick’s Day coming up on Friday, a number of places held their St. Patrick’s Day parades on Saturday or Sunday. As with Christmas, it appears that St. Paddy’s Day is a political football. The news was filled with stories about who could (and couldn’t) march in parades in various cities, and about cities where it didn’t seem to matter. And how other groups turned this “allow” or “not allow” into excuses to beat their own drums and push their own agendas – their own political agendas.
It is NOT about “helping people”
By Nathan Barton
I heard it on the radio, and the New York Daily News is very excited about it, and how it shows all rich people are not evil, greedy, heartless monsters.
It seems that eighty of New York’s upper class have written the NY State governor and legislators telling them that they and other wealthy New Yorkers ought to pay more taxes; 2 billion dollars more, in fact, to do their “fair share” to “support schools, roads, bridges and programs to help poor and homeless residents of the state.” The names include Soros, a Rockefeller (not the one who just died), and a Disney.
It is, of course, utter nonsense; the elite trying to continue to be parasites on society. I am certainly not one of their elevated status (people who live in the Empire State, that paradise deluxe, and make $650,000 a year or more), but even if I were, this strikes me as an example of their arrogance and selfishness. Continue reading →