Around the Intertubes – March 13, 2011

By J. DeVoy

Some recent finds that warrant sharing:

At the re-vamped In Mala Fide, in which godfather Ferdinand Bardamu has assembled a stable of bloggers for a contribution-based society and political forum, 4chan and Anonymous receive an interesting and in-depth treatment.  As the workforce and academy become more feminine, and men participate less in education, the workforce and their communities, Anonymous’ destructive antics are just one manifestation of men dropping out of society.  Rather than playing Call of Duty for entertainment, though, they’re DDoS-ing Visa.

Speaking of Anonymous, Zero Hedge reports that they’ll (allegedly) be picking up where Julian Assange failed and releasing damning information on Bank of America.  At the heart of this embarrassment will be Bank of America’s shady behavior in forcing the foreclosure of thousands of homeowners across America.  More to the point, remember when Bank of America acquired Countrywide and the heapingly full, stinky diaper of subprime and other “exotic” mortgages it owned?  It’s hardly surprising that BoA is in their current position, in light of that, and really needs to cover its losses.  Anonymous’ first demand is the resignation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake.

As for the worst case scenario, Crime and Federalism‘s archives has information about surviving financial armageddon.  No, society will not collapse in a Mad Max fashion, but there will be the kind of home invasion, rape, robbery and kidnapping activity one would expect in a second world kleptocracy.  Read all about it here, here and here.  If you want to insure your loved ones against kidnapping and ransom, or just get a sweet payday if they go missing, such services are available through Lloyd’s of London and New York International Group, but designed for high net-worth individuals and company managers.  We have a way to go before Progressive’s bangable, hipster-looking spokeswoman “Flo” and Geico’s gecko mascot start battling for your kidnap & ransom policy dollars with the usual volley of inane advertisements.

The Department of Homeland Security is no longer just impounding domains – it’s bringing criminal charges against people who link to infringing content (e.g., filestube).  Brian McCarthy, operator of channelsurfing.net, now faces criminal copyright infringement charges for contributory infringement by linking to sites hosting the pirated content.  Allegedly, he was arrested.  While heartening to see government stem the tide of piracy that erodes content producers’ earnings, this seems to be going too far: After a criminal trial and forfeiture of the defendant’s assets, little, if anything is left for recovery in civil actions.  While perhaps tinfoil hat territory, it’s possible that the government has seen that piracy is lucrative, but wants to keep the spoils for itself and will act to block individuals from taking money that could go to the state’s largess – analogous to the Depression-era policy forbidding the ownership of physical gold.

I will never, ever get tired of this unironic painting of Barack Obama.