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If sina.com (and online news portals sohu.com and netease.com which all carry the same piece) are not major Chinese news sources, I don't know what can be. Further the original sina.com link is contributed by Globe Times which is a subsidiary of People's Daily and is considered more pro-government than its parent. PD's website also carries the same news. And why is the re-posting of BBC article even logically relevant to this discussion of censorship here?

Clearly another victim of Department of Education!

Um, unless she had no testes, which I think she would have noticed, she didn't have ovaries. Ovaries and testes are the same organ. I've never come across a paper about a single case of an individual being born with an extra set of gonads (I'm sure there are some, but it's definitely not common!); even

It is possible to have one testicle and one ovary, which could be what this person was referring to.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001669.htm
http://www.gendercentre.org.au/ambiguous_genitalia.htm
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/7108711.html

There have been a number of cases of people born with duplicates of other organs (extra kidney, liver, pancreas, etc) so it seems within the realm of possibility (although rare) to be born with duplicate ovaries and/or testicles.

"Not having to look your enemy in the eye makes things a lot easier."

From Rome to Rwanda, humans have had no problem getting up close and stabby-hacky.

Japan even cultivated "atrocity" as general policy, including bayonet and edged-weapon practice on captives.

http://blogs.uco.edu/graduate/files/2010/09/Japanese_bayonet_practice_with_dead_Chinese_near_Tianjin.jpg

http://www.war44.com/misc/images/1/Nanjing_Massacre_bayonet.jpg

http://p2.la-img.com/581/17219/5774950_1_l.jpg

http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/gifs/china2-9650.jpg
http://www.ww2pacific.com/atrocity.html

http://p1.la-img.com/581/17219/5774950_2_l.jpg

http://english.people.com.cn/200412/13/images/n3.jpg

from: http://english.people.com.cn/200203/15/eng20020315_92153.shtml "China's key legislative body is expected to come up with a preliminary draft of the nation's first civil code this summer. "The code is scheduled to be presented to the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) for a first reading in December after passing key tests. "It was revealed by Wang Shengming, director of the Civil Legislation Office with the Legal Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee."

The article can be found (in Chinese) here http://news.sina.com.cn/m/2010-10-08/092021231740.shtml, which directly attributes to People's Daily at the top, with the link to original, (but which need paid subscription to read) http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2010-10/08/nw.D110000renmrb_20101008_2-23.htm?div=-1 This is the top result when searching for People's Daily (in Chinese) + "ipad" from Baidu.

Searching for the same thing in Google gives you Xinhuanet http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/internet/2010-10/08/c_12637650.htm in the 4th link. While the top 2 results are iTunes link to People's Daily app.

The 5th paragraph is the portion quoted in the article, running it through Google translate give you this:

On the price, "Apple" thing is not cheap, and some even more expensive, but also a lot of inconvenience. For example, can not install pirated software, download music, movies, to pay, and so on. However, when these new gadgets become fashionable to beyond the "useful or useless," and the limitations of cheap, consumers can not help but get your wallet out.

BUT, the article's is misrepresenting the piece. The subject of the FA is roughly "People use iPad just because of chasing fashion", which, surprise(!) is what most /.ers here think. The disadvantages listed above actually made sense when you consider the alternatives available in China, where people routinely copies software, music and movies. Why would you buy a machine that restricts what you do most often, if not for chasing fashion?

Please mod this article -1 Flamebait.

Now, please mod me +5 Informative. Thanks.

There are millions of firearms owned and billions of rounds fired annually.

That doesn't change their original design goal, which for most guns clearly is based on military, police or self defense work. If guns would be designed for making holes in paper they would look like this and if they would be designed to make holes over long distances for sports they would look more like this, yet your average gun doesn't look much like either of those.

Any recreational tool that kills as many people as guns do would already have disappeared from the market long long ago.

Oh, get over yourself.

[S]tate-owned companies remain a gargantuan force in the economy. In 2003 they employed half of China's 750 million workers and controlled 57 percent of its industrial assets.

from http://www.forbes.com/2004/11/04/cx_1104mckinseychina6.html

And what's with the strawman of "10 million people... who's (sic) sole job it is to annoy and slow down their economy"? I never said anything of the sort. By the way:

State-owned companies grow 70% in first four months [of 2010]

from: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6993084.html

Yeah, but the Party built in an escape clause. See Article 51:

"The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."

source

The "interests of the state" clause is a license for the Party to do whatever the hell it likes, the rest of the articles be damned. The Chinese constitution is more useful as toilet paper than as a binding social contract.

I hear enough about the "perspective" of Fox News to know that it isn't worth my time to listen to them, the "reporting" mixes in opinion blatantly, an actual news organization at least tries to appear neutral by attempting to be aware of their bias and tempering it. On the other hand, Fox revels in its bias and seems to even try to amplify it. The denial or omission of easily proven facts by Fox News because these facts don't fit with the Fox News view of the world makes the network lose credibility as well. I guess that it would not be so bad if their reporting at least tried to explain the context of a situation, but instead, the editors allow what can only be intentional errors. Having opinionated commentators separate from the reporting is fine in a news organization, but the anchors at Fox News often add their own bias and opinion into the mix or instead parrot the biases and opinions that they are given. If any of their commentators were actually intelligent and interesting I might have a different opinion, but instead are blatantly ignorant and try to avoid increasing their level knowledge and understanding. There is perhaps some contextual information in the statements to be made by those on Fox News. Which, I suppose means that at least that they aren't just running SCIgen on a new vocabulary list of words each day. Still the statements fall short of actually being reasonable, rational, factual, and reflecting the real world. When Fox News announces that it is reforming itself in an acceptable fashion, I may check it out again. However, until that time I just don't care.

Seriously, in terms of credibility, I would consider Fox news less credible and informative, in general, than the "People's Daily" at http://english.people.com.cn/ which is an organ of the Chinese Communist Party. Hell, Fox News makes Aljazeera look unbiased. Even without a direct comparison to Fox News, Aljazeera is still reasonably credible, truthful, and has a fair degree of editorial independence.

Sort of funny, since at least one of the sites you linked to is expressly telling the Iranian government's version of events:

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/6683862.html

Why are we buying the products of these fascist dictatorships?

s/fascist/communist/

There was already a report saying this is more like "gambling" from the an important government site back in Sept 2007:

http://scitech.people.com.cn/GB/6290699.html

(You may want to use google translate to read: http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en#)

The key points in this report are:

1. It's not yet proven
2. It's in a "gray area", new regulations are/were on the way to make sure only proven therapies can be used on human

Not sure what's going on later.

I do not think any of these are the circumstance to which I referred, but here are a few examples to back up what I say anyway. I believe one of them refers to the same situation as one of the others, but that still makes 3: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/11/28/failed.docking/index.html http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_33 http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_T-8?query=Soyuz+33 http://english.people.com.cn/200610/28/eng20061028_315800.html I do not know where you got your information, but the fact is that the United States has always had better docking technology than the Soviet Union. In fact, the Soviets have a rather poor record at it.

Freedom and equality of ordinary people is the priority nro 1. http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html

ctrl + f + freedom

Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus in Beijing.

Zhongguancun, known as Beijing's "Silicon Valley," was approved by the Chinese government as the first national level high-tech industrial development zone in 1988.
The area houses thousands of high-tech companies, about 40 universities such as Peking University and more than 200 science institutions. Microsoft breaks ground for 5,000-person Beijing R&D center

Maybe the very fact that EU states would be willing to challenge such exclusivity agreements explains why their legal system in general seems better at protecting consumers rather than raping them, as seems to be the norm in the US. Since when has the US ever been as effective as the EU in protecting consumers?

baidu japan got blocked by GFW. Apparent reason porn related. The link is in Chinese.

Microsoft has had a lot to say about Vista and the market has been listening.

Gobsmacked. That's what the Brits call it when something jaw-dropping happens and you can't think of anything to say. Microsoft's blockbuster quarterly results kind of fall into that territory for me. The cash river keeps on flowing

Someone out there - or 88 million someones - bought a copy of Vista, 28 million of them in the last two months. This brought $4.14 billion in revenue in the quarter, making the Vista doom mongers look a tad silly. Sales of high-end Vista SKUs were the most popular. Vista helps Microsoft's quarterly profits rise 23 per cent"

Microsoft's chief financial officer said the company "outperformed expectations pretty much across the board." But it was led by robust performance of the company's PC software products. Sales in the Windows group rose 25 percent to more than $4.14 billion, while its Office division reported a 20 percent increase in sales to $4.11 billion. ...Growth was highest, he added, in international and consumer markets. ... Microsoft also sold a higher mix of its premium-priced versions of Windows and Office than a year earlier. And Mr. Liddell said the company's anti-piracy efforts were particularly successful, increasing desktop software sales by as much as 5 percent from a year earlier. Microsoft Earnings Send Stock Soaring

The company reported "robust demand" for Windows Vista, Office 2007, Windows Server, and SQL server. The combined revenue of Microsoft's client, business, and server and tools divisions grew by more than 20%. Revenue in the company's video game division soared by 91%, driven primarily by the success of the launch of Halo 3.
Microsoft said Vista sales have been increasing since the release of the Windows operating system to consumers in January. "Customer demand for Windows Vista this quarter continued to build with double-digit growth in multi-year agreements by businesses and with the vast majority of consumers purchasing premium editions," said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platform and Services Division at Microsoft.
A strong global PC market helped sales of Windows Vista and Office 2007 considerably. PC shipments worldwide grew by 15.5% in the third quarter, according to IDC. Much of the growth occurred outside the United States, where PC shipments increased by only 4.7%.
Chris Liddell, CFO for Microsoft, said sales growth was strongest in the international markets, such as Brazil, China and Russia. The fact that Windows sales grew faster than the PC market was an indication that customers were upgrading their PCs to Vista, and also buying the premium edition. Three quarters of Microsoft's customers bought the more expensive version. Microsoft Earnings Boosted By Windows Vista, Office, Halo

The more expensive versions of Vista and a new Office 2007 package also are spurring a larger than usual number of customers to renew three-year licensing agreements, according to Bellini, Institutional Investor magazine's top-rated software analyst. Microsoft earnigns expected to rise

You didn't look hard enough. Burma does have oil and natural gas. And the Chinese, Australia, Canada and the UK are involved. http://english.people.com.cn/200701/16/eng20070116_341829.html http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cns43800.htm

Fuck, even in a socialist country (if there are any) they'd be looking for cheap labor.

No, they just need to return the confiscated real estate to their rightful owners and/or their kin.

As for China being a worse offender — yes, indeed. Although I doubt, China's "terrible attrocities" match Castro/Guevarra's per-capita, it was a black day, when Clinton gave China a preferred trade status — temporary at first, then permanent in 2000...

US media was applauding him, and the illiberal heavy-weights like New York Times even criticized the few lawmakers, who tried to prevent the bill on those pesky "human rights issues".

Anyway, whatever the situation with China is/was, Cuba is a horrible regime, and should be kept under the pile of bricks until it either changes or collapses.

US's tourism accounts for 0.9% of GDP... that's nothing compared to china (5.4%), New Zealand (10%), Italy (12%), even Canada (2.5%) ... get the point? It is insignificant to the US, but critical to many other areas of the world ...

If you can read Chinese, try http://bbs.people.com.cn/

That's the billboard system hosted on China's highest ranking official propaganda website, controlled directly by the top propaganda division of the communist party. Well, just list a few post titles from the front page:

- What does it tell that 70% of the corruptions and bribes are through the wives and mistresses?
- Reporting the "black kiln" in sadness and horrors.
- Is the Nanjing government going backwards in regulating the housing price?
- 24 ways to expose corrupted officials in mainland China
- Black kiln reminds me of the greatness of Mao Zedong
- Why do the officials pretend they don't know?

Does that sounds like a Gulag or 1984 situation? When did you last see similar posts hosted by either CNN or MSNBC?

1. I didn't bring up chinese sweatshops. The person I REPLIED TO brought them up. So you've directed your ire at the wrong post, bro. Go back and re-read the thread.

2. Are you actually suggesting that it's not the official position of Bejing that Taiwan is part of China? You don't have to be Taiwaneese to understand the very clear language they've used.

There is little press about the fact in English - it's not a major concern for neither USA or British news services. Read http://english.people.com.cn/200401/01/eng20040101 _131677.shtml for example - but in Russian press it tends to be discussed more widely. Some of these provinces have passed regulations to allow the chinese workers to move in more freely, as they have a lot of arable land that is not used at all after the collapse of USSR sovhoz system, and any additional production (==taxes) that they can get is desperately needed to fund their social services.

Really?

Europe has its own share of problems with meat smuggling:
http://www.deutsche-welle.de/dw/article/0,2144,180 8099,00.html
http://www.eubusiness.com/Food/bonemeal-foodwatch. 92/

Also, not only Russia banned Polish meat:
http://english.people.com.cn/200611/10/eng20061110 _320195.html

The reason I didn't comment on whether the law was just or not is because I wasn't asked. Furthermore, I can not change it, so I have to live with it. However it's still better than some other countries' sentences for similar crimes.

The minimum sentence is only 1 1/2 year. You may say it's too much, but the Thai people have declared it, and it is their country.

You say that he's neither lenient nor forgiving....can you give examples of this? Because I can give more than enough examples of his compassion--even though their math is wrong, they're missing a 0, in addition to making sure his people have food.. And remember, it isn't the King who's calling for this but rather Naai Vissanu Meeyo.

It may be better to think of this in terms of the Mohamed cartoons or the Holacoust denial. All the time politicos get slammed in the paper, so it's not a matter of free speech, but rather respect. I don't know why you could expect people to respect your tradition when you won't respect theirs. They're not telling you to not disrespect your political/ruling figures, but to extend respect to theirs.

Can someone point out a few cases where the news was somewhere along the lines of "American Extradited For Breaking [fill in foreign country] Law At Home" or does this business only work one way?

Google is your friend. Fron just a quick skim through the first few matches searching against "US extradites" we find the following:

2006

2004

2001

2000

China is already going down this path:
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/19/eng20061219 _334047.html

On which country on the earth these are totally free actions?

In no country I know would simply signing up for a meaningless social networking site involve a criminalization check. It's not just the fact that speech is censored that is outrageous; it is that the website itself seems to provide a list to the authorities concerned.

That's not specific to China, they just want to control it, which is fine.

While there are possibly some countries that regulate free-speech, there are very few that murder their own citizens for expressing a contrarian viewpoint. In either case, MySpace.cn is unique in appearing to have a filtering mechanism at signup itself.

Every country have their own regulations to protect their own sensitivity to a matter.

Perhaps you'd like to take a look at China's very own constitution then? To quote,

Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Mark my words: the Chinese government is on a power-trip. This has nothing to do with the unity of the People's Republic of China or slights against the centuries-old (and let's face it, awe-inspiring) Chinese civilization.

(Full disclosure: Not from China, but many of my friends are.)

Actually I've read part of their constitution and it does have all that stuff in there about free speech etc. However, their constitution, unlike the US constitution, seems to try to be more specific than ours is (it talks about jobs and crime etc). In US history class a while back, my teacher mentioned that it was widely agreed that the key to a good founding document is flexibility, so you have to be general. China's is a lot less general than ours.

In addition, theres usually an escape clause for the government, some kind of gottcha:

Emphasis mine. Who decides what is normal etc.I know we have that problem in the US when we deal with cults, and extremists. When worded like that, you can pretty much define anything to be abhorrent. That's why the founders of the US said that the government couldn't regulate religion at all, because they were afraid of those gottchas. Then they said that they can get you for "disrupting public order". Well we all know what that means.

they'll still keep murdering anyone who makes a stand for human rights

I wouldn't source People's Daily Online, which is known for having just a little bias, especially when China hasn't been doing very well in the area of abductions or human rights itself.

they'll still keep murdering anyone who makes a stand for human rights

I wouldn't source People's Daily Online, which is known for having just a little bias, especially when China hasn't been doing very well in the area of abductions or human rights itself.

they'll still keep murdering anyone who makes a stand for human rights

Excuse me??? What reality are you in?

"has a very high likelihood of being a forgery"

Don't be an idiot - that would mean being found for sale on a dirty blanket laid out on a sidewalk outside the Lohou train station in Shenzhen. The Tianyuan Cave is a carefully protected area, listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, and monitored specifically to prohibit such funny business.

Paint the mountains green!

I don't have the energy to handle the rest of your lies (Israel doesn't generally start wars -- Hezbollah started acts of wars this summer by kidnapping, for instance.)

Like when you claimed that Israel killed hundreds at a time -- which you first couldn't support

Here is the real story.

This one is from the Peoples Daily Online. Not sure if the is "the" original version.
http://env.people.com.cn/GB/5421217.html

Here are some more stories with pics.
http://www.hf365.com/epublish/gb/paper2/20061101/c lass000200003/hwz821613.htm
http://www.news365.com.cn/wxpd/sm/smxw/200702/t200 70227_1305979.htm

It seems to indicate that the unit weighs 10 grams and is powered by the pigeon.

Hundreds dead at a time?! Millions of homes destroyed?! Oh, no references? Strange... not.

Fine. The 1st 3 items that came up in a Google search. I suppose you find this even 'stranger' than when I didn't provide links:
http://english.people.com.cn/200204/12/eng20020412 _93947.shtml
http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/125-killed-hundred s-wounded-by.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin
I suppose you have an excuse for each of these?

Can you give good references to any of your claims? At all?!

I have given the 1st 3 from a google search, though I suspect your head will remain firmly buried in the sand.

What a nitwit you are!

Oh shit. What can I say? Takes on to know one.

First you claimed that a democracy (Israel) is worth a thousand times more criticism than most any country (not other democracy) on the planet!

Israel is hardly a good example of a properly functioning democracy. You can't claim to have a democracy simply because there are elections. Take Iraq, for example. No-one in their right minds call this a democracy. Likewise, I reject the idea that the US or my home country, Australia, are democracies. You see, for democracy to work you need a couple of important requirements met:

- freedom of speech
In Israel, I believe anyone who criticises the Zionist agenda finds themselves in a very difficult situation indeed
Also, freedom of speech doesn't just mean the freedom to stand on the corner and say what I think ... it means equal access to the media. So if I have a political viewpoint that doesn't get covered in the media, and in fact only gets criticised, then that's hardly democratic, as people's opinions are very much shaped by the media. And in Israel, the media is very, very right-wing.

- independent country
In Israel's case, it doesn't really matter what political parties want to do, because they are 100% dependent on the US for aid ... in fact Israel is the biggest recipient of aid in the world. They also receive unbelievable gifts of weapons and ammunition from the US. So they are a US client state, not a democracy.

Then you make idiotic claims re Syria, one of the worst dictatorships in the world!

Look. What Syria does inside it's own borders is up to the Syrians. I don't by any means like what's going on there, but on the other hand I understand that the best people for changing Syria are Syrians ... not the US or UN or whatever. Now what Syria does outside it's borders is dwarfed incredibly by what Israel does outside it's own borders. In fact I say that Israel shouldn't have any borders at all ... it shouldn't exist. But keep in mind that when people are asked about the biggest threat to world peace, no-one says "Syria". Everyone says either the US or Israel. Syria doesn't even register.

Now you specifically claim that despite your insane claims about genocide etc done by democracies that you're not a useful idiot for the dictators?

Ah ... no I made no such claim. In fact I'm having trouble making that sentence make sense. If there is a point in there, try making it again.

Syria is one of the world's worst breakers of human rights and police states is worse than any democracy?

Well, as I said, what goes on inside Syria is really up to Syrians to fix. They are the only people that can liberate themselves from their own ruling class. But Israel's humans rights abuses against

Sure thing, comrade.

Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' freedom of person by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.

Article 39. The home of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's home is prohibited.

Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens' correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offences, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.

Article 41. Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.

Another name that Taiwan calls itself is 'The Republic of China'.
The creation of Taiwan as we know it is about some Chinese leaders that failed to unite China, so they fled to Taiwan.
Hoping to raise a military strike with the help of America to defeat the Communists.

People get it mixed up if Taiwan were successful to overtake China, would you defend the Mao Tse Tung? It is just a power struggle, at least in the past. I cannot speak on whether the Chinese in Taiwan have now become Taiwanese or are still Chinese, I don't know, it is up to them.

Regarding Tibet, they deserve to keep their identity, I believe, but with regards to the Dalai Lama, and his rule, yes he was the leader, not just the spiritual leader. How can slashdotters support a serfdom? I just don't understand. Do you want to live as a serf in your life?

http://chineseculture.about.com/library/china/whit epaper/blstibet200402.htm?terms=by+region
http://weecheng.com/views/world/tibet/myth.htm
http://english.people.com.cn/200405/23/eng20040523 _144141.html
http://journeyeast.tripod.com/myth_and_reality.htm l T

OK, so I looked at the article which was about a paragraph and linked me to another article which was about four lines long and linked me to another article, again about a paragraph long, linking to a "full story which gives a 404 error.

Of course, this being slashdot, I know better than to be suprised by this.

The chinese article is only three links deep and is actually online. It says "Under the new standard, all mobile phones, regardless of the brand, will be able to share one charger with a USB access, allowing users to charge handsets through laptops." - so it's still pretty ambiguous.

Also, though the Chinese effort seems to be government-mandated, the South Korean program is being requested by carriers, with no government involvement.

--It would certainly go a distance in explaining the actions of some of the supposedly fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the prelude to the grand 9-11 performance acting in ways most un-Islamic. (Booze and Cocaine and Women [gnn.tv] won't win the devout many points with Allah.) So what's the story here? Were they fundamentalist terrorists, or were they dupe mercenaries who didn't know what they were signing up for, and who were allowed to bring off their clutzy plan while the US secret services conveniently looked the other way [tvnewslies.org], while the secret/shadow government [washingtonpost.com] provided access to the remote controlled [911review.com] jets actually capable of performing the precision flying which badly-trained mercenary goof-balls could not have been asked to manage, and while the Israeli-owned security companies [whatreallyhappened.com] which held contracts at each of the airports involved during 9-11, gave them fast-lane service at the boarding check points?

There is a great antidote to some of that confusion: Debunking 9/11 Myths

Dudes with bombs and box-cutters working independently is still the false reality which needs to be understood here. The myth of terrorists is the preferred tool for building the fascist state. Luckily, this is increasingly well understood. It's the 'How' which seems to be causing some hiccups.

Here are some victories the good guys won against terrorism around the world in the last couple of weeks (this list doesn't include terrorist attacks):

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals arrested in S. Afghanistan
Police Claim Arresting Taliban Commander in Ghazni
Pakistanis Arrest 90 Afghans at Border
Saudi detains 139 suspected militants
Security forces scrambled to disrupt Asian summit terror plots
Court freezes Islamic group's bank account
Top aide of Qaeda chief in Iraq killed
Morocco jails 14 Islamists
Eight French Islamists Returned To France
4 Dutch Muslims Convicted of Terror Plan
and another trial: Denmark: Muslim terror trial begins
Terrorist plot targeting Illinois mall foiled
Man accused in Taliban arrest ordered held without bail
And reaching back just a little further just to inc

Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?

Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want.
Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?

Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.

So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!

Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.

I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.

Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"

How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!

Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.

By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals

I don't want to cause a flame war here, but I can give an example of US refusing extradition when a US citizen commits a crime (negligent homicide, car accident) in a foreign country (even more, they decide to clear him out of any charges). And no, Romania doesn't have a capital sentence anymore.

http://english.people.com.cn/200602/02/eng20060202 _239783.html

As for my view towards the article, I agree to the fact that local authorities should support foreign ones in arresting and sentencing criminals, especially when it's about acts like this that ruin a country's reputation outside.

Different societies have different values, and in the growing homogenization of the West, that's lost sometimes.