Category Archives: Politics

Opinions, News and Updates on Political systems world wide.

Australian Politics, News, Politics, Software

Avoiding Village Roadshow Lawsuits – Australian Edition

August 28, 2017 admin Leave a comment

Recently it has come to my attention that Village Roadshow is going to start issuing fines to people in Australia, caught downloading via torrent. I’m going to put a little guide together that tells you how to avoid being fined $200+. This is stuff you should have already done, but since I know a lot of people are ignorant of how torrenting actually works, this may shed some light. Furthermore, I’ll throw in some links about how to change your DNS (the thing that pulls up websites, to put it in very basic terms) in your router, though this isn’t entirely required, it is helpful (but can be difficult for people who aren’t entirely sure of what they’re doing).

First of all, if you’re running the latest version of µTorrent, get rid of it. Now. The latest version of µTorrent you want is version 2.2.1, and anything after this version is an ad-filled mess that reports data about your usage back to Bittorrent Inc’s servers. Not only that, but because of the risk of it being full of spyware, a lot of websites, trackers and even other clients ban µTorrent which means torrents with lots of seeds and leechers often won’t connect to most of them. You can find 2.2.1 here at oldversion.com (for Windows only) but I would use some of the other alternatives, since that version is so old.

A better idea would be to switch torrent clients entirely. there are a number of well made, open source, comprehensive torrent clients available, such as qBittorrent (available for Windows and Mac) and Deluge (Available for Windows, Mac and Linux). I personally recommend qBittorrent.

Once you’ve installed a torrent client that doesn’t suck, you need to make sure you setup your upload speed and torrent encryption, because the default settings will strangle the shit out of your connection, and the lack of encryption means your ISP can see exactly what you’re downloading. Depending on what you use your internet for, your overall speed, and if you have any data caps, your upload limit should be 5-50% of your total upload. Here’s an example:

Approximate upload rates for torrents depending on your internet plan. Click to open

To set your upload rates and torrent encryption, first open your torrent client. I’ll also be For the examples here I’ll be using qBittorrent and (sigh) µTorrent.

qBittorrent

For qBittorrent press Alt+O or go to Tools -> options, then down to the “speed” button. Tick the box next to the first “upload” option, and then set your upload speed according to that chart.

If you have no idea what your upload speed is, just set it to about 15. You might get less priority when downloading torrents, but if you’re entirely uncertain as to your internet plan that’s about as safe as you can get. With qBittorrent you can also click on the upload and download notifications at the very bottom of the client, and set your upload (or download if you like) from there.

The green arrow shows the download speed limit, the red arrow shows the upload speed limit

Clicking the speed limit brings up this box

You can also set a scheduler so your torrents download overnight, but I’m not gonna go into that now.

Next you’ll need to enable torrent encryption. Torrent encryption makes sure your ISP cannot see what you’re downloading. This also makes it harder for other parties to see what you’re downloading (though no impossible, we’ll get to how to fix that later). In the options of qBittorrent, go down to the “BitTorrent” button, and force torrent encryption. It should already be enabled, but you want to make sure it’s always on.

Do NOT enable anonymous mode, or you’ll pretty much never be able to download anything ever again.

Note: These options should work on MacOS exactly the same

µTorrent

For µTorrent you’ll need to press Ctrl+P or go to Options -> Preferences. Click the “bandwidth” button on the side and then set your upload speed. Just like qBittorrent, you can also set your download and upload speeds from the main interface window exactly the same way you do with qBittorrent.

Setting encryption is done pretty much the same way as qbt. Go to the “bandwidth” option on the sidebar and set torrent encryption to “forced”

And finally, µTorrent has a very annoying habit of trying to make you update it to the latest version constantly. You DO NOT want to update it. Absolutely DO NOT let it update. When you first run the program, it’ll probably pop up a box asking if you want to update it, make sure you uncheck the “check for updates” box and select no. Next go into the options under “general” and uncheck all the boxes under Privacy.

I still very strongly recommend not using µTorrent. Please. Please use something else.

But torrent sites are still blocked?

Ah so they are. The best method to fix this is to set the DNS in your router to either Google DNS or Open DNS. I use one of each. Both of them are reliable and don’t block torrent sites. Both of those links contain information on changing your DNS so you will see blocked sites again. You may need to reboot your router and computer after changing them to see any effect. I recommend changing the DNS in the router, not in your operating system, but if it proves too challenging, you may be able to follow the next instruction:

Buy a VPN

This is probably the easiest way to get around torrent blocks and the threat of paying out the arse because you don’t think it’s worth paying $27 to see a fucking movie in the cinema. Or $35 to buy a fucking blu-ray. The best company I’ve found is Private Internet Access. They have an app for each operating system including Android and iOS, and their speeds are good enough that you can torrent at full 100/40 NBN speed through them without slowdown at all. You can even set your account up in your router so you’re permanently connected to your VPN. They also have servers in about 50 different countries. VPNs are also useful for buying games online cheaper than on Australian stores, or watching blocked content on YouTube. At around $55 AU a year it’s also reasonably cheap, and unlike free or extremely cheap VPNs, they don’t sell your data to 3rd parties, log your actions or get overloaded and slow right down. PIA also offer full encryption, so good luck to anyone trying to prove you downloaded Dunkirk when all the computers in the world wouldn’t be able to decrypt a man-in-the-middle attack.

P.S. This isn’t a paid for article, I genuinely think Private Internet Access is a great VPN company. They’re not the only great company, but they are decently priced for how comprehensive they are.

EOF

Australian Politics, History, Politics, Thoughts, Uncategorized, War, World Politics

Remembrance Day

November 11, 2016 Squat Leave a comment

Today, the 11th of November is Remembrance Day. The day we remember our fallen soldiers who fought and died for our way of life. Soldiers who were drafted or volunteered, to make the planet a better place. To fight oppression, and for us to live free.

In the Great War, our planet’s first war where countries all over the globe participated, we fought against German Nationalism. Germany sought to absorb the countries around it, relentlessly bulldozing their way through Europe. Further south, the fascist Ottoman Empire was doing the same thing. Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, The United States, and several countries of Europe and the Middle East fought against these war machines, pushing them back. Forcing Germany to surrender, and leading to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. We fought against fascism and nationalism, and we were victorious.

After the First World War, Australia (and other nations) took in refugees fleeing from their countries. Their homes were destroyed, their families killed, their possessions forgotten. They came from Europe, they came from the Middle East. Many of them did not even know that English was a language and had never heard it spoken before. Yet they came. They integrated, and they made our countries better for it.

During the Second World War, Germany, this time a fascist nation, which grew from the seeds of discontent, again decided to usurp Europe for itself leaving nothing behind. It wanted Great Britain, Russia and even Africa to itself. Several countries – Italy, Hungary, Romania, etc – allied with Germany, out of fear, or because they thought there would be more to gain by allying with them. In the east the Japanese Imperial Army, another fascist, nationalist country, were attacking and absorbing territory from China, Korea, Indonesia, and the rest of South East Asia, attacking the United States in Hawaii, even coming as close as to bomb Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Their ambitions proved fruitless as again Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, The United States, Canada, and many other nations joined forces to push back the conquering aggressors and end the war. Once again, the victory went to the forces fighting for freedom, and against fascism.

Once again, refugees fled their former countries, in Europe, in Africa, in Asia. Australia accepted not only refugees but people who just wanted a better life than living in war-torn Europe. Even soldiers who fought for the Axis powers were allowed to immigrate to Australia, rebuilding their lives here. We welcomed them with open arms, they integrated with us within a generation and our culture learned and grew from their input.

The Korean war, and the Vietnam war were the next wars that these allied nations joined together for, fighting the aggressive expanding Communist Chinese in Korea, leading to the liberation of the southern part, which became the Republic of Korea. China supported the Vietnamese bid for independence from the French by providing arms and war equipment, as well as funds and soldiers. We fought this war to prevent the toxic nationalism of China from possibly spreading further through Asia and into the Pacific. Fears that communism and nationalistic policy would make its way throughout the world unless it was stopped fuelled the war that Australian, New Zealand, British and American soldiers (amongst others) died for. Communism and Nationalism was not compatible with our way of life, and we were not prepared to allow it to continue to flow out of China.

The Vietnam War created tens of thousands of refugees who fled in rickety boats from Vietnam. Many of their boats ended up in Australia, their occupants terrified and sick. We allowed them into our nation, we allowed them to integrate with our culture and become Australians. Our cultural backbone once again strengthened with their addition.

The Cold War lasted decades, from after the war until 1991. During this period there was only muted fighting. The Russians had supported the Chinese during the Korean and Vietnamese war. No actual fighting was done between the two great nations of the USA and Russia. However during this period, thousands upon thousands of people fled the Eastern Bloc into the west of Europe, over or under the Berlin Wall to West Germany. To the United States. To the UK, and to Australia. These people have also been important for our cultures.

Our allied powers once again fight against nationalism and fascism in the Middle East, against Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi, Assad and the Islamic State. We create refugees because we fight the terrifying ideals of their leaders. Their leaders who want to impose strict religious rule upon the rest of the world. To impose strict fascist laws upon every nation, and to control us with fear and threaten us with destruction. Their ideals that are not shared by a majority of their people, the people who flee towards freedom. The people who escape those countries in the most dangerous ways because it’s more safe to sit in the ocean on a boat barely holding together than stay under the rule of their oppressors for any longer.

We only strengthen our nation with the blood, sweat and tears of people who join our country to live free, who wish only to make their lives in a free country, to have their children in a free country, and for their children and their children’s children to grow up free.

Australia is a free country.

This is what our soldiers died for. Freedom. Against fascism, against nationalism, against war, and for the safety of the oppressed.

Lest We Forget.

Lest We Forget

News, Politics, Public Shame Glory Train, Rants, Religion

The Public Shame Glory Train is boarding. Run, Freedom Faucet.

August 23, 2010 alphabete 3 Comments

This. Here you are, turning on the Freedom Faucet and letting it run. Please enjoy my thinly-veiled contempt for your kind.

Preamble: You people, you people make me sick. Make me ashamed, make me sad and embarrassed to be an American. Make me afraid to be a Black American. I am so sorry we share a common national heritage and the same Constitution and that the Declaration of Independence is the same for the both of us. You are a noxious cancer, a pox on all that is good about this country.

How dare you twist the facts to your own purposes? How could you stand and with a straight face claim citizenship of this nation that was built on the backs of everyone but yourselves and expect to have what you want when you are coasting, as are we all, on the downward slide of our country into unreason and irrationality? I don’t even have enough spit for all of your faces.

So, we have this video. This black man walking through a crowd. Somehow he becomes the target of chants and accusations and, don’t try to deny it, hatred by the protesters. How did this happen?

I remember learning in school that this nation was founded (and yes, stolen) by people who wanted to worship as they pleased. I used to think that this meant in America, your choices were respected. I feel a little like a fool. Who have I sat next to on a bus or spoken to politely in line at the store that has taken one look at my hair wrapped up and my unadorned face and thought to themselves “That brown girl’s prolly a Muslim”? Have I walked through a door that was held by a Tea Bagger? Did I ever smile at a baby whose parents were teaching it behind closed doors to hate in public?

What are our freedoms even worth if we’re too ignorant to exercise them properly? I mean didn’t we all learn how to read a map in school?

Here’s a map from TopherChris, you stupid motherfuckers. Read this Village Voice post too, so you can see what’s already near Ground Zero that’s somehow not more threatening than a community center aimed at fostering multicultural understanding and defusing the kind of horribly (un?)American antics depicted in this video. I realize that this terror mosque will be right in the middle of Ground Zero, so I suppose I understand how it must feel to be standing at the site of the World Trade Center and not even be able to see the people you hate so much. For those of you who are just looking at this for the pictures because you can barely read, “A” as in “All I want is for you to learn something today” is the proposed site of the place you’re terrified of and “B” as in “But I bet you’re still an idiot” is the site where you’re trivializing the deaths of thousands of people with the crosses you’re burning on the inside.
View Larger Map

Amagad look, over there there’s a woman dancing with no clothes on while men get hardons staring at her! GASP! And over there is a betting parlor! And oh crap a bunch of kitschy junk!

In the interest of being fair, I thought I would try to balance myself out a bit here lest I be seen as some sort of liberal-thinking intellectualist who cares only about allowing terrorism and terrorists to grow and bloom in this, the “greatest nation on Earth”. Remember this guy?

Wh-what’s that say? The face of…terror? Really? Perhaps you were not aware of this but Timothy McVeigh, while not a mainstream Christian, was a member of the Christian Identity movement. I won’t go into a long definition here but let’s see what we can find out about them. From one of their own pages:

Kingdom Identity Ministries is a Politically Incorrect Christian Identity outreach ministry to God’s chosen race (true Israel, the White, European peoples). We proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom (government according to God’s Law) through books, tracts, tapes, videos, the American Institute of Theology Bible Correspondence Course, our international Herald of Truth Radio Broadcasts, a Prison Ministry, Biblical Counseling, Seminars, and other means. The Elect Remnant, Christian Patriots, Nationalists, Reconstructionists, Racialists, and all seeking a higher level of understanding will learn Biblical solutions to personal and national problems, and be given keys to unlock hidden truth.

I won’t link to their page but you can Google it if you want don’t already have it saved in your favorites. Perhaps you might be saying “Well gawrsh, alphabete, those guys are extremists!” O rly? Might they be? Just like, I don’t know, the extremists who killed a grip of people on the eleventh of September in the Year of your Lord, Two Thousand-One? I’m not done yet though, for ye who kneel and prostrate yourselves at the altar of hatred and stupidity.

You may recall Mr. McVeigh caused some property damage. He blew up a building, specifically the Alfred P. Murrah on 19 April, 1995. It remains the worst act of domestic terrorism that the United States of America has ever seen. This is a man, a white man, in this country, a citizen who conspired with another white American citizen to cause damage to property and lives. A guy who believed in God and, ostensibly, Caucasian Jesus. But wait, there’s more.

Look at all these Christian churches near the Murrah Building! Where are your protests? Where’s the claim that by putting churches near the Murrah building is a slap in the face to the victims of McVeigh’s terror? Where? Oh, right, just look at these fucking comments.

Let’s see what those shifty Muslims are up to with this so-called “Community Center at Park51”. According to their Mission Statement the founders of this project hope to

“Uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people”

“Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities”

“Establish a state-of-the-art green facility that will serve as a model and inspiration for sustainable space, helping to advance sustainable living in urban contexts”

…and a few other things. A couple of them have to do with Muslims but if you want to tell me with a straight face that you’re not being willfully ignorant you can read them yourself and look for the “halla halla halla”. So let’s see. They want to uphold respect for diversity? Those bastards! Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations? Foster the spirit of civic participation and an awareness of our commonalities? What the fuck? And don’t even get me started on that whole green facility/sustainable space/sustainable living thing. For crying out loud it sounds like they’re trying to turn New York and indeed, all of America into some kind of place where the people you shit on prove that they’re not as bad as you think and that, in fact, they may be better than you.

I checked out some other pages. Know what “their kind” will have in their fancy-pants new center of extremist terror-breeding? Recreational facilities. A swimming pool. A reading library (oh Holy Father preserve us!), art studios (grab your Bibles lest ye be tempted to appreciate something), a restaurant and culinary school where no doubt all the food will be seasoned with a nice heaping tablespoon of jihad, and let us not forget the mother-fucking swimming pool. Does that explain it? Are you people afraid of getting in shape or are you scared that in your swimsuits we will see you exposed for the yellow-bellies you really are? So hard to tell.

There will be a mosque, sure, oh, and also a memorial room for contemplation. I see now, though, that contemplation in a 9/11 memorial room, or a basketball court, or an exhibition hall are so, so much worse than a gentlemen’s club which you would go into if it weren’t for your shame-laden penises shrinking at the thought that wimmins aren’t property and naked dancing doesn’t make them gutter trash. And the fact that you’re not gentlemen. I’d address the lady Tea Baggers here but I will assume their mouths are too full of their husbands’ balls to get back to me.

You are the festering, gangrenous wound in the side of this country. You are the ones who are ignorant and irresponsible and hypocritical. When will the physical attacks begin? When will you mobilize to bring down De Gubmint in which it is encoded that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”? When will you stand up like men and women and say “You see these freedoms? They’re ours, not yours!”? Come on now, when will you break down your barriers of respectability and appearance as normal American citizens and do as your hero McVeigh did, and use force to get what you want while you whine that people are trampling on your precious, pure-blooded Aryan America? Or are you afraid to just put on your balaclavas and come out of the closet as the terrorists that you are?

You deserve your tickets on the Public Shame Glory Train and you make Mr. Conductor want to drive this shit off a cliff.

Politics, Religion

Bob’s Educational Corner: An Evening With the Pope

November 12, 2009 Bob DragonSlayer Leave a comment

Welcome, friends, to the second edition of Bob’s Educational Corner. Tonight, we have a very special guest: St. Eleutherius, the thirteenth Pope. Thank you for joining us, your Holiness.

St. Eleutherius: A pleasure, my child.

Bob’s Educational Corner: Now, to start, I want to let everyone know a little about tonight’s format. Education is a serious subject, but we here at Bob’s Educational Corner believe it’s important to make it fun and engaging, as well as informative and relevant. To that end, we invite our guests to help us decide what would best suit the interview. And for tonight, St. Eleutherius has requested a boxing match.

St.E: I felt an MMA match would be too uncivilized for tonight’s discourse.

BEC: I can certainly understand that, Eminence. *Putting on gloves.* Now, I’ve read that you were instrumental in early Christianity’s stand against the Montanist movement. Would you say that’s accurate?

St.E: *Jabbing the air, bouncing from foot to foot.* To a point, yes. I do not want to imply I pushed against them from the start, but when it seemed actions need be taken, I ensured that they were.

BEC: I see. *Right hook.* So did you feel this philosophy had to be stopped?

St.E: *Sidestep, right jab* The philosophy was heretical, true, but my major concern was the welfare of the faithful. I acted only when their souls were in danger.

BEC: *Shoulder block.* So you’ve written in your memoir, “I Was a Teenage Radio to God”. But what about the claims that you are secretly a vampire, and wanted to turn the church into a personal blood-bank? *Vicious left to the face*

St.E: *Skillful pirrouete* My child, I am the Pope. I can not be a vampire, any more than you can be a good Catholic. *Uppercut counter*

BEC: *Retreating, attempting to circle* So you deny the reports linking you to virgins drained of their blood, armies of undead servants, and Godzilla? *Jab! Jab!*

St.E: Blasphemy. *Duck, twist* I never even met Godzilla.

BEC: And your comment on pictures showing you, at a White House fund raiser in 1954, drinking punch with the aforementioned giant lizard? *Hard left to the chin*

St.E: *Off balance, reeling* You cannot expect me to remember the guest list of every function I attend. I am sure I have had punch or shared a hooker with dozens of Washington insiders at one time or another-*Glancing hook to solar plexus*- mere pleasantries of state, not evidence of collusion.

BEC: *Backing away* Then you also deny stories of a drunken bender in 1521, when you, Godzilla, and Martin Luther trashed the Vatican’s guest room? *Hurricane Fist*

St.E: I plead the Fifth! *Crane Parts Lilly Pad*

BEC: This is not a criminal trial, your Holiness! *OBJECTION* The Fifth can not be invoked!

St.E: I have diplomatic immunity from jurisprudence! *Legal JargPWND*

BEC: Your mother has diplomatic immunity! *C-c-c-combo!*

St.E: Your FACE has diplomatic immunity! *Moose and squirrel!*

BEC: Your mustache looks like Hitler’s! *Third Reich’d!*

St.E: Your FACE looks like Hitler’s! *Denied!*

Referee: *Whistle* Stop! Break it up, break it up! Invoking Nazis is grounds for disqualification. Both sides forfeit- match is a draw. *Godwin’s Law-ed!*

BEC: *Wiping blood from eye and offering free hand* Thank you for joining us, your Eminence.

St.E: *Spitting out tooth and shaking hand* My pleasure.

BEC: That’s all for this installment of Bob’s Educational Corner. Join us next time, when my concussion fades and I stop tasting purple. Good night, and good learning.

Health, Other, Politics

Bob’s Educational Corner: Intro and Cabbages

November 10, 2009 Bob DragonSlayer 6 Comments

Greetings and salutations, fair citizens, and welcome to the first installment of Bob’s Educational Corner! I’ll be giving you important and informative insight into whatever seems prudent, so put on your learning hats and let the adventure of learning begin!

Have you ever eaten a cabbage? Delicious, isn’t it? With its crunchy exterior and chewy candy center, cabbages are at the heart of America’s war on not-deliciousness. But did you know cabbages are filled with essential oils, and provide enough vitamin A to kill a full grown elephant? Today, we’re going to take a look at the humble cabbage, and find out why it’s America’s favorite breakfast cereal!

In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus and his best friend, Jesus Christ, discovered America. They were captivated by its vast plains, beautiful mountains, and promiscuous college students. But what they loved most were it’s native plants, especially a small green bush that smelled faintly of elderberries. They found that, when boiled or steamed, it gave them the energy to carve Mount Rushmore. Further, when pickled, it was an effective cure for hangovers and scurvy. The two decided to name the plant “cabbage”, an ancient Egyptian word for “kind of looks like lettuce, but isn’t”, and a new era of culinary excellence began.

Cabbage was an instant success. In the first week of release in Europe, it sold over 1.2 million copies, becoming the first North American fruit ever to go platinum. It was highly sought by the nobility, who craved its decadent texture and rich baritone singing voice, and by the peasantry, who loved how you could boil it for a while and then not starve to death that week. Cabbage was so successful, in fact, that famed artist Leonardo DiCaprio featured it in his masterpiece “The Sistine Chapel”. It was a golden time for the cabbage, and for Europe.

By 1602, however, the cabbage furor had died down. While still popular as a cure for shingles, and for its uncanny resemblance to Rob Reiner, most people thought of cabbage as a kid’s food, or something only eaten on holidays. There was even a town, just outside Sicily, where no one had never even heard of cabbage. Of course, the entire populous had been killed by barbarians several decades earlier, but the fact was undeniable: cabbage just wasn’t as popular as it used to be.

It was almost 200 years before cabbage returned to the public eye. In 1927, the Wright brothers, Orville and Ellivro, were attempting to invent the world’s first humorous answering machine message. They took a cabbage, hooked it up to their old Dodge Dart, and questioned it about foreign affairs. Much to their surprise, the cabbage was not only well versed in politics, but disintegrated Ellivro with its heat vision! Orville asked his other brother, Wilbur, to replace him, then replaced the car with a weasel he’d been saving for a special occasion. Sure enough, both brothers gained the power of flight, and the cabbage skyrocketed back into the spotlight. Demand was immense, and soon the Wrights sold the distribution rights to 20th Century Fox, who created several successful spin offs, including coleslaw, those little things on the end of shoe laces, and Jimmy Buffet.

Today, cabbage is used in everything from xylophones to brussels sprouts. Odds are good that, in the past hour, you’ve used products containing over 17,000 cabbages- more, if you own a television. So the next time you’re eating a big bowl of poached cabbage, take a moment to reflect about how much you owe to it. If I were you, I’d give it a little salute- thank you, cabbage, for all that you do- and thank you, America, for giving us the cabbage, and the freedom to eat it!

Raev.net