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Westerners are able to hold this compartmentalized video game mentality about war because war isn't something that happens to us. We've never had bombs dropped on our neighborhoods. We've never had the experience of seeing a severed hand on the ground after an explosion and trying to figure out who it belonged to. We've never had the experience of seeing our child's shredded body after a blast and thinking about how we'd carefully helped them dress that precious body for school just hours before. Reading by Tim Foley.
Only the United States could bomb a country, kill its leader, massacre its children, declare the intention to destroy its military and topple its government, and then call that country's retaliation against US military bases "unprovoked". Reading by Tim Foley.
I hate everyone who inflicted this nightmare upon my species. If you stand by this senseless US-Israeli act of depravity, then I consider you an enemy. And I will never stop reminding everyone of the psychotic agenda you supported. Reading by Tim Foley.
If any US troops die in the upcoming standoff, it will be Washington and Tel Aviv who killed them. Reading by Tim Foley.
No no, this is nothing like all those other times. This time military interventionism to topple an oil-rich government in west Asia will lead to peace and democracy. Our soldiers will be greeted as liberators! Reading by Tim Foley.
Send a textWelcome to the newest episode of the Serious Privacy podcast, where hosts Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O'Brien, and Dr. K Royal address the hot topic of agentic AI and the risks to #privacy, #dataprotection, #security, and #humanrights. We cover the basics as well as human attributes (or not) along with how to take the risks into consideration as a professional. If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us! From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.
This is what US-imposed "democracy" looks like in practice: giving a nation the freedom to do what Washington tells them to do and elect the leaders that Washington allows them to elect. Reading by Tim Foley.
In a post-Iraq invasion world, these sorts of reports deserve nothing but a scoff and a dismissal. Reading by Tim Foley.
Whenever you say anything online opposing the way the US is preparing for war with Iran or strangling Cuba to death with siege warfare, you'll always get people whose family comes from the nation in question telling you to be silent and support the US war machine. Their family emigrated at some point because they didn't like the government, so now they spend their time on social media telling everyone to support US operations to topple that government. The correct response to such people is “Shut the fuck up.” Reading by Tim Foley.
You can weep for the dying oceans while marveling at the stars. You can rage for Gaza while reveling in the earth beneath your bare feet. Reading by Tim Foley.
Democratic Party leaders are doing nothing to oppose Trump's war plans for Iran because they support those plans. They just don't want to be the ones pulling the trigger. Reading by Tim Foley.
Israel's demands and Hamas' refusal are two diametrically opposed positions which put things on a collision course toward reigniting the Gaza holocaust at full scale. Reading by Tim Foley.
Send a textWelcome to the newest episode of the Serious Privacy podcast, where hosts Paul Breitbarth and Dr. K Royal discuss the privacy and data protection news of the past couple of weeks. This week, Paul rants about digital sovereignty, K discusses new American legislation, especially to protection children's data, and together they also talk about the latest WhatsApp decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union. If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us! From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.
US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism. Reading by Tim Foley.
Our leaders are not wise or insightful. They're not even particularly intelligent. Our society is led by plutocrats who only know how to make more money, by unelected empire managers who only know how to dominate and control, and by elected politicians who only know how to say the right words and make the right bargains in order to get themselves elected. Reading by Tim Foley.
Send a textWelcome to the newest episode of the Serious Privacy podcast, where hosts Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O'Brien, and Dr. K Royal connect with Josh Schwartz of Phaselaw to discuss the increasing use of data subject access rights (DSARs) as a weapon. The resources required to handle such requests can be quite extensive. How do companies keep up? Maybe Josh has some insight. If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us! From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.
Australian authorities were fully aware that inviting Israel's president for a visit was going to ignite unrest and furious opposition. They invited him anyway, and sent in the police to assault the protesters. Reading by Tim Foley.
They launched a live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world. They're openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world. They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world. Reading by Tim Foley.
We are ruled by deeply wounded and dysfunctional emotional infants. The people who control our society are whipped about by primitive forces within themselves that they don't understand. Reading by Tim Foley.
Speaking before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explicitly stated that the US deliberately caused a financial crisis in Iran with the goal of fomenting civil unrest in the country. Reading by Tim Foley.
Political maturity is finally admitting to yourself that the angriest, most disconcerting communist you've ever met was pretty much right about everything. If you learn enough, stay humble enough, and pay close enough attention, eventually that's what happens. You realize that, generally speaking, the really high-octane commies have the most lucid understanding of the world out of any group out there, and the only reason this wasn't always obvious to you was because you live under a capitalist power structure which aggressively indoctrinates its populace from birth into believing that communism is No No Bad Bad. Reading by Tim Foley.
The power structure which birthed the Epstein abuses is not going to do anything about the Epstein abuses. The only thing that might possibly change is that some people may become radicalized against that power structure. Reading by Tim Foley.
Send us a textWelcome to the Serious Privacy podcast, where Paul Breitbarth, Dr. K Royal, and Ralph O'Brien meet with Tom Kemp of the California Privacy Protection Agency. We talk about the new DROP system, priorities, history, and coordination with other agencies and lawmakers. Tom was previously on Serious Privacy, before his CPPA days. If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us! From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.
This video is as close to a self-portrait of western civilization as it gets. This is who we are. This is where we're at. Might as well have giant letters with a big red arrow saying “YOU ARE HERE” overtop it. Reading by Tim Foley.
This is of course ridiculous. Epstein is a known intelligence operative for the state of Israel, not Russia. This is an established fact, and has been for some time. Reading by Tim Foley.
The United States is the very last government on earth who has any business engaging in humanitarian interventionism. Literally dead last. Reading by Tim Foley.
I don't know what to say today. We are ruled by abusive monsters. The US is preparing for war with Iran. They're going in for the kill shot on Cuba. The latest batch of Epstein emails looks horrifying. The US is full of protests because ICE keeps killing people. Israel is still massacring civilians in Gaza as Australia prepares to host its president for an extended visit. Reuters has confirmed that Biden officials actively obstructed the circulation of internal USAID reports that Gaza was being turned into a nightmarish hellscape in early 2024. There's so much cruelty. So much abuse. Reading by Tim Foley.
I don't criticize Iran because I do not want to feed into an imperial war propaganda campaign for a horrific agenda that I do not support. I want to focus my criticisms on the power structure under which I actually live, because that is what one does when one is not a groveling bootlicker, and because the power structure under which I live happens to be the most abusive tyrant on the world stage. Reading by Tim Foley.
It is not okay to be a grown adult in the year 2026 and still believe US regime change interventionism in the middle east will lead to positive outcomes. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's just incredible how quickly and aggressively the US is advancing longstanding agendas of global conquest under the Trump administration. Now they're racing to take out Cuba. Reading by Tim Foley.
The justifications for war with Iran keep changing. First it's nukes, then it's conventional missiles, then it's protesters, and now it's back to nukes again. Kinda seems like war with Iran is itself the objective, and they're just making up excuses to get there. Reading by Tim Foley.
Send us a textWe are back! Welcome to season 7 of the Serious Privacy podcast, with dr. K Royal, Ralph O'Brien and Paul Breitbarth. Also this season, we will keep you up to date of developments in the data protection and privacy community, artificial intelligence and some cybersecurity. And of course we'll bring you interviews with great guests! If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us! From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.
We live in a civilization that was built on lies, is made of lies, and is sustained by lies. As soon as the lies stop, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Reading by Tim Foley.
Michael Parenti has passed away after a luminous life advancing powerful ideas and insights about the abusive dynamics of human civilization and how best to address them. He did not die a wealthy man. The mainstream papers did not report on his departure from our world. Only a relatively small percentage of the population is aware he ever lived. But everyone knows who Elon Musk is. Everyone knows who Jeff Bezos is. Who Bill Gates is. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's so disgusting how these freaks are telling us right to our faces "Yeah well you guys don't have any rights, so I'm going to silence you and oppress you and I make no apologies about that." Reading by Tim Foley.
There was a segment in last year's Louis Theroux documentary The Settlers that stuck with me where Israeli settler leader Daniella Weiss refers to Zionism as a "magic system". Reading by Tim Foley.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog is expected to visit Australia at the invitation of the Australian government, with anonymous sources telling the Israeli press that he's scheduled to arrive on February 7, but so far Canberra itself has been very opaque about the time and nature of the visit. We can surmise from this that they're currently trying to come up with a strategy for how to sneak the president into the country without the spectacle of him getting confronted by throngs of anti-genocide protesters. Again: they're trying to sneak the president into the country for a visit to protect him from anti-genocide protesters. Really think about what that means, and what it says about Australia as a country. When you are doing things like this, you're on the wrong side of history. Reading by Tim Foley.
It is still legal to say "Fuck Israel, free Palestine." So we should say it loud and say it often, because we don't know how much longer we'll be allowed to do so without getting thrown into prison. Reading by Tim Foley.
For me the most illuminating insight into what these laws are actually designed to do came up in an ABC interview with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Tuesday. Over and over again throughout the interview Rowland was asked by ABC's David Speers to clarify whether the new laws could see activist groups banned for criticizing Israel and opposing its genocidal atrocities in a way that causes Jewish Australians to feel upset feelings, and she refused to rule out the possibility every single time. Reading by Tim Foley.
I can't get over the fact that people were casting bets on whether the US would bomb Iran the other day. It just says such dark things about the type of civilization we are living in. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's one thing to see a cruel government doing bad things on the other side of the world. It's quite another to be shown in vivid detail that your own society is ruled by monsters, and that those monsters have a vested interest in deceiving you and controlling your words and your actions in order to advance the most depraved agendas you could possibly imagine. Reading by Tim Foley.
Speaking together at the Israeli-American Council Summit on Saturday, billionaire Zionist megadonors Miriam Adelson and Haim Saban strongly implied that they are engaged in some extremely shady activities to manipulate the US government in advancement of Israeli interests. Reading by Tim Foley.
I'm all for overthrowing tyrannical power structures, I just think we should start with the worst one. Reading by Tim Foley.
A mentally disabled Australian woman is being prosecuted for antisemitic hate crimes after accidentally pocket-dialing a Jewish nutritionist, resulting in a blank voicemail which caused the nutritionist "immediate fear and nervousness" because she thought some of the background noises in the recording sounded a bit like gunshots. Reading by Tim Foley.
You can always tell how murderous the US empire is being from day to day from the expression on warmongering senator Lindsey Graham's face, and right now he looks like he just found his mother dead in the bathtub. Reading by Tim Foley.
Is there anything more undignified than “leftists” and “anarchists” who cheer on the fall of empire-targeted governments even as the empire moves war machinery into place? Ooh look at me I'm sticking it to the man by supporting the same agendas as the US State Department. I'm being punk rock by regurgitating the same war propaganda talking points as John Bolton. I'm fighting the power by backing the foreign policy objectives of the most powerful empire that has ever existed. Fucking embarrassing, man. Reading by Tim Foley.
Everyone's anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Every normal person will tell you they want peace and abhor mass-scale violence. Then the mass media start doing what they always do and churning out stories about atrocities in an empire-targeted nation, and all of a sudden people find themselves supporting airstrikes on that nation's capital, and believing they came to that position all on their own. This happens because most people are unaware that the western news media do not exist to report the news. They exist to administer propaganda on behalf of the western empire. Reading by Tim Foley.
You've seen this all before. They run the same script over and over again. You know all the beats. The formula never changes. Reading by Tim Foley.
The regime change supporter's favorite trick is to pretend the people in the targeted country are an ideological monolith. All Iranians hate their government, all Venezuelans wanted freedom from Maduro, etc. They do this constantly. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's incredible how rapidly the empire has been shoving through longstanding regional domination agendas in the middle east and Latin America since late 2023. Incinerating Gaza. Decapitating Hezbollah. Regime change in Syria. Bombings and regime change ops in Iran. Kidnapping Maduro. Now moving on Cuba. It's just been grab, grab, grab for the last two plus years. Reading by Tim Foley.