The Loveshade Family Blog

I hereby give notice that I am formally and publicly disassociating myself from Anonymous Hackers.

 I do not believe in nor do I support the disruption of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press when the exercise of such freedoms does not interfere with the rights of others.  I do not believe in the interference of fundamental freedoms in the guise of protecting those freedoms whether that interference is made by a governmental or non-governmental individual or organization.

 I am not by this notice disassociating myself from, nor am I acknowledging any association with, the Cult of the Dead Cow, Umbra Data and the Dark Side Intelligence, LulzSec, Twitter Anonymous, the Sinister League of Evil Badguys, Hacktivismo, the Illuminati, or Terrorists for Truth.

 Nothing in this declaration shall be construed as indicating participation in any illegal activity, whether in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, or any other country or portion of the world.

 I also hereby give notice that I do not intend to reveal the legal names, pseudonyms, locations, methods, or plans of any members of any of these groups, nor do I acknowledge having any such knowledge whatsoever.

Posted at 23:23 UTC on the 17th of April in the year 2012 CE/Discord 34, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3178

 ’Anonymous should take a leaf out of the IRA’s method of operation and use a cellular structure, with only 3 or 4 in each cell so if there is a snitch in the organization it has minimal damage.’

- Stephen, St. Ives, England, 07/3/2012 02:33

Quote from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111020/Top-members-hacking-groups-Anonymous-LulzSec-arrested-leader-Sabu-turns-in.html

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_at_Scientology_in_Los_Angeles.jpg

(Remember, this cellular structure is a fundamental part of the origin and success of Discordianism).

Posted by Reverend Loveshade at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

In America in 1790, for the foreign-born children of an American white woman to be American citizens, the father had to be a white American.  Now that we live in a supposedly more enlightened time, it looks like we're going backwards.

Ellie Lavi is an American citizen who lives in Israel.  She gave birth to twin daughters, Maya and Shira, in Israel.  Under current U. S. law, and even the laws through much of the 19th and 20th centuries, her daughters would ordinarily be American citizens as is the foreign-born 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

But to have children, Ellie underwent in-vitro fertilization.  Even though Ellie would likely be named as the legal mother of the children and thus legally responsible in America, she's not their mother in regards to citizenship.

Twins born in Japan faced a similar dilemma.  In that case, they weren't accepted as Japanese citzens even though their parents were Japanese.  Their birth mother was American.

Supposedly the American law was made to prevent people from fraudulently claiming they are Americans.  Apparently there is a significant threat to America from foreign-born fetuses.

As usual, the law is years behind the world of physical reality.  The first successful in-vitro birth was back in 1978, over 30 years ago.  And it can be worse--with some combination of these conflicting laws in various parts of the world, children could be born without a country.

Details and links below

Continue reading "Babies Without a Country" »

Posted by The Loveshade Family at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Some stories make us as ourselves, "What country are we living in?*"  This is one of them.

Some government agencies, employers, and colleges have demanded to know applicants' Facebook account passwords.  The ACLU stepped in and helped get that stopped. But now instead some are asking and even demanding to have access to the supposedly private friends' only posts. If they can do that with Facebook, your formerly private email could be next.

Even if you aren't required to reveal the information, if you're trying to get a job or get on a team, will you want to take the chance of refusing?

Currently, employers in most of the United States aren't supposed to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, age (with some major exceptions).  But apparently those rights don't apply to something as fundamental as private communication with your friends and family.

Learn more in The Redtape Chronicles article HERE. 

*Most, but not all, of us currently reside in the United States of America.

Posted by The Loveshade Family at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Many of us were brought up with the idea that if you're innocent, you have nothing to worry about.  Try telling that to those who have been released from death row after sitting there for years, and to the families of those who were executed and later exonerated.

But it's not just the extreme that can cause you problems.  Scott Morgan, Associate Director, FlexYourRights.org, lists five reasons you should never agree to a police search even if you have nothing to hide.

We personally know two people who were arrested and incarcerated based on evidence they didn't know was there or evidence they believed was legal.  Do you know that no one stashed marijuana in your car?  Do you know the police won't plant anything there?  If you agree to a search, you lose a lot of your rights and legal protection.

See more on the reasons at www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-morgan/5-reasons-you-should-neve_b_1292554.html

- - - - -

Thanks to Lisa for telling us about this.

Police man from Open Clip Art Library, public domain, as described at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Police_man_ganson.svg

Posted by The Loveshade Family at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

In the past, if the government wanted to shut down freedom of speech, they had to work diligently to find the press that was printing what they didn't like, and shut it down.

But in the modern era, if the government wants to shut it down, all they have to do is tell IP providers, "don't let anybody in our nation connect to these websites." That's what's happened in China, and now it's what SOPA and PIPA intend to do in America.

Their stated reason is to stop piracy and protect trademarks and copyrights, which we support. But it would mean sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, MySpace, blogs, and many other sites would have to police every single post under threat of their site being cut off from every single person in America. There would be no right to a jury, no right to a trial, no "innocent until proven guilty." Besides that, those sites couldn't afford to do that and stay in business.

Currently, someone who sees a violation can report it, and the violation can be removed. But under these laws, a violation could mean blocking the entire website. Even Wikipedia, which has worked since the beginning to remain objective, is going black on January 18 in protest because this could mean a threat to the Internet as we know it.

If you live outside of the United States but post or visit any internet site in America, or you access any part of the internet from America, SOPA and PIPA could affect you too.

For more details, go to https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech. To see the bills, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act of HR.3261) is at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech and PIPA (Protect IP Act of 2011 or S.968) is at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show.

The following sites associated with The Loveshade Family decided to go on strike on January 18 in protest: The Loveshade Family, Alden Loveshade, Lorien Loveshade, Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild, and the associated Miley Spears.  We chose not to put the Loveshade Family Blog on strike because it specifically addresses this issue and allows people to make comments.

While the Order of the Pineapple site decided to place a banner with a link to the protest, it decided not to go on strike because January 18 is Pat Pineapple Day and the day the Order is presented.

Posted by The Loveshade Family at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

In Texas they said a woman couldn't breastfeed at Target even though the law said they could. So women protested Wednesday by having "nurse-ins" at 250 of Target stores.

Breastfeeding is natural and not something that has to be hidden. Before people invented baby bottles every human being breastfed.

Some people make breasts sex objects. Who decided women's chests are sexy and not men's? Not me! If you believe in God would he make something a sex object that he wanted babies to suck on?

I believe in God and Goddess and the human body is a beautiful thing. We should not force people to hide it.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/29/target-nurse-in-did-it-change-perceptions-of-public-breast-feeding/

Photo uploaded by Aexrefous under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Breastfeeding_child.jpg

The opinions expressed by an individual member of The Loveshade Family do not necessarily reflect the views of the whole family.

Posted by Lorien Loveshade at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

All too often bad systems cause good people to do bad things—or stop them from doing good things.

In South Fulton, Tennessee, firefighters stood and watched as a family's home burned to the ground.  Why didn't they fight it?  Because the family hadn't paid a $75 protection fee.

If you have a system where people have to pay to get fire fighters to save their home, then you can't give it out for free, can you?  Of course renters could lose their possessions because their landlord didn't pay, and people struggling to buy food who can't afford the extra money may be out of luck--and a home.  And a fire could spread from an unprotected home to a protected one.

So why make such a system to begin with? Should we have to pay a fee specifically for the police or they won't investigate if we're assaulted, robbed, or raped?  And if we don't pay does that mean we can't get arrested?

In much of America, essential services have been paid out of taxes.  That's what tax money is for.  Protection money is for gangsters.

Read more at http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tennessee-family-home-burns-while-firefighters-watch-191241763.html

See an earlier case where three dogs and a cat died in a fire in an unprotected home at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/

Image of a house fire using gasoline by Kpahor, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.  For details see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_fire_using_gasoline.jpg

Posted by The Loveshade Family at 01:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)