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A Dane weighing in, here....

As I understand it, the concept of "freedom of the press" doesn't just apply to the relationship between official and semi-official authorities and the press -- it is a general measure of the ability of the press to uphold basic freedoms for its reports. Thus, even if the government works hard to protect individual journalists from the repercussions of their writings, it can still lose ground if such protection is either ineffective, or if the entire situation is so hostile as to constitute an oppressive environment.

In other words, if you have to have a police escort to protect you following a controversial article, then your willingness as a journalist to write another one at a later date (and by extension, of your colleagues to do the same) will necessarily be affected negatively.

Believe me, psychological pressure counts, too. Do you think Salman Rushdie would have written "The Satanic Verses", if he had known beforehand what it was going to mean for him, personally?

Getting back to the Danish situation, it is not just the need for police protection that affects the rating. Looking at the broader picture, many major players in Danish political and business circles have disavowed a number of journalistic freedoms in the context of the Muhammad caricatures -- often with reference to the old saw about "not yelling fire in a crowded theater". Spurious arguments such as these (which amount to "don't print anything that might offend a country that Denmark exports to") form part of an oppressive, unfree environment for the press.

Take it from a real soldier: they "looked" like a bunch of second-rate actors trying way too hard, and failing miserably.

The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life

Don't act like the title is a hush-hush secret, because that title is printed in the Penguin edition I bought from Amazon a month ago. And by "races," he meant what we call species. This is obvious to anyone who reads the first few pages of the book, which tells me you didn't read the book. Let me be more clear by quoting from the book you denigrate, but never read:

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil... The Origin of Species, Chapter 1

Oh my, Darwin was a cabbage racist! Stop the presses! Oh wait, that's stupid. You saw the word "races," thought "aha, ammunition" and went running. Here's a hint--don't trust creationist web-pages, because they'll give you a misleading, caricatured idea of what Darwinism means. They'll make you look like an idiot because you'll run around calling him a racist, when anyone who even reads chapter 1 of the book knows he was talking about varieties, or species, not races like the KKK gets hung up on.

I'm not clear why I would credit Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot et al to Darwin since all of these dictators were motivated by a lust for power, not because they were convinced of common descent. Are you calling everyone who believes in common descent a Nazi? "Those murderous dictators" weren't perfect Darwinists, because nothing they did was "Darwinian." Darwinism is based on variation in the gene pool, acted upon by a selective force, leading to diversity. Oppose that to Hitler, whose philosophy was based on the idea of a "pure race." It's obvious that Hitler's views were not based on Darwin's ideas. In fact, both Stalin and Hitler actually banned Darwin's works. Stalin banned the teaching of Darwinian evolution. So by what stretch of the imagination were they "perfect Darwinists"? If a political leader banned the bible, would you infer from that that he was a perfect Christian?

"a person is known by the friends they keep."

I don't ask that you suddenly change your mind. I do ask, however, that you stop being an idiot, and make an effort to think your arguments through. It takes one Google search and 30 seconds of reading to refute every single point you made. It's not that I think I'm smart, only that your arguments are so embarrassingly bad that people will inevitably conclude that you're stupid. If you aren't stupid, then stop being intellectually lazy.

You live the life you choose.

You only "wreck" it by others opinions, or your own regret over making the wrong choice.

Living your life in a barely concious drug induced haze, or with a dedicated life of praying and worship, driven career oriented, or family focused. Deciding if these are wrecked is just a matter of opinion.

Each of these caricatures may think the others are the ones missing out and wrecking their lives.

If you want to spend your life playing warcraft, go ahead, just don't blame me or the game, or society for your decision.

Google is still in its early days, and it has a reputation for innovation and intelligence (the same reputation that Microsoft had in the early 80s).

But there's a difference: in the case of Google, the reputation is reserved, while in the case of Microsoft it wasn't, at least not in the early 80's. Microsoft was a caricature of a high tech company back then. Almost no self-respecting expert would go there (if they did, it was only for the money), and Microsoft ended up hiring lots of smart but inexperienced college grads who reinvented the wheel.

In recent years, Microsoft actually has become a decent company, oddly enough as their reputation for innovation has actually declined.

Have you seen the teacher's fake myspace? Do you know her friends or family? Do you know her?

No. That is why I'm not making wild assumptions that she took no harm from this and has no just cause, unlike the poster I was responding to.

Do you know her? In case you haven't noticed, Myspace is a cesspool of fake pages, joke pages, and satirical pages mixed with immature attention-whoring. I seriously doubt that the teacher's myspace was realistic looking, and even if it was, no one who actually knew her would take it seriously.

Employers have been known to search MySpace before hiring, especially in education where MySpace is more popular than in most professions. If the page was satire, then that is fine. All they needed was some indication that it was that and not an attempt to lie to people including her real contact information. From what I've read what they posted was identity theft, not satire.

At worst it might prompt a few simple questions like... well... "is this your myspace?"

Really? That is the worst that can happen? There is no possibility that someone hiring for another school, looking for a principal did not google her name, see this page, and just move on to the next candidate because they did not want to deal with the issue? There is no possibility some kid at the school did not pull it up, and then their parents saw it and assumed it was legitimate? There is no possibility that that person then showed it to her significant other, who then believed she had been lying to him for years, causing a great deal of emotional trauma? Where do you suppose all the harassing e-mail and phone calls she got came from? I don't think you have any idea what the "worst that could happen" is.

Kids have always held grudges against their administrators, and have always tried to take revenge in little ways. This is nothing new, and this is nothing sinister.

Yes and when they break the law to get that revenge, either by egging their car or publishing slander the parents have always been legally responsible for that action.

This is kids being kids, and holding a parent liable for it is both ridiculus and dangerous.

Who do you think should be held responsible when minors break the law? Should they be given carte blanche to break the law without consequences? Should a minor without the basic right to go where they want, get a job if they want, and eat what they want be then held responsible for their actions? You can't have responsibility without rights. Since the parent has the rights, which they then may grant, the parent also has the responsibility, which they may then pass on. If a kid breaks my Windows, the parent is responsible to pay for it and if they decide to teach their child personal responsibility by making the child work to pay for it, well that is up to them.

Ask any parent- it's absolutely impossible to know what their kid is doing at all times.

It is not impossible, but it is very, very, very hard. And parent stupid enough to try to rule their children by brute force will fail, but that is not my problem. If the parent teaches them ethics and what is and is not the right thing to do, then they won't have any problems. If they don't teach them that lying, homophobia, and impersonating others is wrong, well then the parent is responsible for the consequences of that.

Should parents be punished when a kid draws a funny caricature of their teacher and gets caught?

Is drawing a funny caricature a crime?

Welcome to the internet! Since you've obviously never logged on to myspace, allow me to give you a few general ideas of what you might expect to find on myspace:

1. Emo kids taking greyscale pictures of themselves, with their favorite emo/punk/goth band posed dramatically as their background image. Note that if you take a close look at these unique and tortured individuals, you'll notice the exact same 20 bands, movies and books reappearing on every kid's myspace.
2. "Hot Chicks" with 500+ friends, often with many revealing photos of them and their "friends" hanging out at the beach/pool/living room. 9 times out of 10 this is a bot trying to link you to a softcore porn site. That last time it'll really be a man.
3. Chuck Norris, Bart Simpson, and even Steve Irwin all have hundreds of myspaces! This is because their larger then life personalities require more room them most people to reside comfortably on Myspace.

Have you seen the teacher's fake myspace? Do you know her friends or family? Do you know her? In case you haven't noticed, Myspace is a cesspool of fake pages, joke pages, and satirical pages mixed with immature attention-whoring. I seriously doubt that the teacher's myspace was realistic looking, and even if it was, no one who actually knew her would take it seriously. At worst it might prompt a few simple questions like... well... "is this your myspace?"

Kids have always held grudges against their administrators, and have always tried to take revenge in little ways. This is nothing new, and this is nothing sinister. This is kids being kids, and holding a parent liable for it is both ridiculus and dangerous. Ask any parent- it's absolutely impossible to know what their kid is doing at all times. Should parents be punished when a kid draws a funny caricature of their teacher and gets caught?

But surely a lawsuit will clear all this up, and soundly prove that the princapal is not a lesbian.

This is a gross simplification - a caricature - of antitrust law and the obligations of Microsoft under the consent decree. Ah, where to begin?

For starters, it is absolutely false there is any kind of a "50% rule" about market share. That's a misleading, irrelevant, bogus statement. Ted Kennedy has fantasized about enacting such a rule, but it's not the law.

Further, it was never about "integration", but allegations of illegal tying. Microsoft allegedly tied IE and Windows, however they gave the browser product away for free, and made claims there were technical benefits that overrode any concern about affect on competition. Each claim took them outside a straightforward tying analysis.

The outcome of the case, and its ultimate resolution, was arguably on technically illiterate grounds in part, political in others.

Microsoft remains, from a legal standpoint, essentially "unhinged". The problem is, they haven't taken advantage of a plenitude of market opportunities. Don't blame competitors, don't blame "closed source" or "open source", don't blame the legal framework. Microsoft simply hasn't been aggressively competing with foresight.

Good job! nearly 3000 soldiers dead, 20,000-40,000 wounded. Well more than 100,000 Iraqis dead, untold numbers wounded. Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists.

Afghanistan on the brink of civil war. Secret prisons. Torture. Full frontal attack on American civil rights. The list goes on.

Lies , lies and more lies to the American people.

Ordinary joe? He's a liar who used his lies to start a war. This is one of the worst crimes a human can commit. It is so sad that you have such a poor view of the ordinary joe.

The prequel seems similar to the Academy movie that was one of the original ideas for a Star Trek movie (IIRC, fully developed into a script before the idea of bringing back the original cast and doing what became ST:TMP came up), and seems to be the most frequently batted around but never-gets-done idea in Trek.

My prediction: It will suck, hard, particularly with no one previously involved in Trek involved. A prequel works, if it all, by carefully balancing new insights with fidelity to the original characters, and its going to be really hard to do that without any continuity in either the cast or the creative team.

I think they'd be better to do a trek-universe film with an entirely new set of characters, either in a previously unused point on the timeline or overlapping one of the previous series or movies, and give themselves something new to build on without the risk of either doing caricatures of previous characters, or unrecognizable characters with old characters names.

Anyway, sorry about about leaving you thinking I was calling you stupid. I was actually caricaturing the sanctimonious worldview of those who use ad hominem arguments because they don't consider raw logic and facts to be necessary to prove their point.

Aahhh. A perfect example of the blind, idiot, freeper zealot.

Yes folks they actually think this way. And you thought it was only a caricature.

Can't people see where this is leading?

Of course, if criticize (sic) another person, or mention that Muslims comprise the majority of the world's terrorists, or siggest (sic) that Christianity or Islam are based in hatred of the other, you will be flayed alive and thrown naked into the Thames. Because in the UK, you only cricize (sic) the government. Everyone else is off limits, by law.

Firstly: I'm a Catholic. We are continually vilified in the media; you probably haven't noticed it simply because its so common. Our spiritual leader, the Pope, is criticised no matter what he does, and lambasted by people who fundamentally fail to understand the role he plays.

When a newspaper in one of the Baltic states prints a fairly mild caricature of Muhammad, Muslims the world over stage mass protests and threaten to boycott goods from that country. When similar cartoons of Jesus are printed, do artists lose their jobs and high-ranking politicians rush to make amends? When the Pope quotes a 14th C. predecessor's criticism of Islam and the men who follow its precepts, churches are attacked all over the middle east and Christians in Islamic countries cower in their homes for fear of the mob. When a similarly high-ranking Islamic cleric himself denounces all people of other faiths as apostates deserving of death, do mosques burn? The director of a documentary critical of Muslims' attitude to women was gunned down in a street in Amsterdam. Dan Brown remains in good health, despite The Da Vinci Code.

Feel free to suggest that Christianity is based around the hatred of Muslims (or any other faith); you would be wrong. The converse may, however, be true.

None of this changes my belief that it would be wrong to subscribe to the belief that "Muslims are terrorists," or even "Muslims comprise the majority of the world's terrorists." Timothy McVeigh, the IRA, Basque separatists... Muslim terrorists are just the new Communist revolutionaries, a bogeyman to scare the witless masses into surrendering their rights. Demonising the many for the actions of the few is neither fair nor just, but an inevitable result of the modern focus on the unusual. Just as the fact that a few priests are paedophiles leads people to think that most priests are paedophiles, the fact that some Muslims are terrorists leads people to think that most Muslims are terrorists.

Should this experiment made by the NASA, in a Boeing with U.S. doctors, half the comments I saw in /. would have been reversed.

So, about recent french envolvement:
The first time, it was to say George Bush Jr was an incompetent a**hole.
The second, it was to say seomthing was terribly wrong with global climate changes.
The third, it was to say there were no WMD in Irak.
The last, it was to say the Irak invasion would only increase terrorism.

Note that these are news only in the U.S.A.. Everybody else on this planet knew about these facts since *years*.
It's funny to see how far someone who was wrong will go, to try to ridiculize the one who was right. But it's funnier when the people who get f*cked by the first, will go along the joke and, despite having a d*ck deep up their a**es, insult the second.

When will some U.S. people get a brain, and accept their own mistakes, instead of diverting the blame to others ?

Innovation don't always come from hamburger eating arrogant fat red necks who somehow ate back their own vomit and ended believing in the crap they were trying to feed the others.

(note: I know this is caricatural... One can find the kind of people everywhere in the world, but these days, they seem to concentrate together... Anyway, I did not invent the whole freedom fries fashion...)

Humility is not humiliation. Please try to practice the first, it will help you avoid you to bear the second.

Your well-spoken call for moderating the hyperbolic rhetoric is cancelled out by your anti-religious bigotry. You paint a shallow caricature of those with whom you disagree; a very childish and immature thing from an otherwise seemingly intelligent person.

There's a great scene in Lucasarts' Grim Fandango where Manny Calavera, protagonist and reaper, travels to the realm of the living to collect the souls of recently poisoned fast food patrons, and the real world is quite a ridiculous caricature that is completely alien through the eyes of residents of the land of the dead.

Your insight is interesting. What you point to in Grim Fandango and in Katamari is similar to what is called in literary criticism "estrangement" or "de-automatization". Estrangement happens when the literary work takes a familiar object, scene or event from everyday life, and presents it through such a new perspective that it makes you look at it anew. What was familiar to you has suddenly become strange. What you perceived automatically, without thinking, without even noticing, you now perceive as new, unknown, and baffling. The classic example is Tolstoy's story Kholstomer, which consists of a horse's naive look at everyday life, which makes them seem alien, sometimes even absurd. The effects of this device can be social criticism, but are not limited to this.

The concept of enstrangement was invented by the Russian Formalists and was later adopted by other schools of literary critique, sometimes even hailed as the hallmark of literature. It seems unsurprising that you should enjoy games that bring about this effect.

While I'm disappointed that I have to wait to read the other two parts of this critique, I'm glad it's being posted at all. This is a game worth in-depth analysis.

One of my favourite aspects of video games is the representation of the real world. Many people are enthusiastic about this aspect of gaming but most don't share my take on the subject. I wouldn't be a Slashdotter if I wasn't wowed by pixel shaders and bump mapping and advanced AI, but what really fascinates me is the artistic representation of reality - the statement made about our world facilitated by creative use of limited resources.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is one of the greatest contenders in this field as its depiction of a fictional California-esque state is totally astounding, replete with buildings, streets, varied geography, natural wonders, rolling landscapes, and all juxtaposed by a pissed-off populace. There's a great scene in Lucasarts' Grim Fandango where Manny Calavera, protagonist and reaper, travels to the realm of the living to collect the souls of recently poisoned fast food patrons, and the real world is quite a ridiculous caricature that is completely alien through the eyes of residents of the land of the dead.

Katamari Damacy is unique in that the protagonists are not human at all, but permanent residents of deep space. To The King of All Cosmos and The Prince, Earth is one planet of millions, but it is not just any planet. The Earth is populated by excitable little people who have absolutely littered their entire planet with stuff, and it is this stuff that makes Earth a suitable place to collect materials to repopulate space with stars.

Stuff here, stuff there, stuff everywhere! Not only can anything smaller than your katamari be rolled-up and added to the clump, but every collected item can later be examined replete with a concise but innocently baffling description in the limited omniscient of the space-faring royal family. Some such descriptions of the hundreds upon hundreds of ordinary objects and creatures include:

Coconut Crab -- "A crab with strong claws. It doesn't look anything like a coconut at all..."
Peach -- "A butt-shaped fruit that is more tasty than butts."
Faucet -- "Hot and cold water comes out of the same place. We are amazed."
Loud Momma -- "Her voice is loud and when she laughs, babies start screaming."

This is why the game is deserving of critique - because the game itself is a critique of urban civilization. It patently points out how much more complex and frivolous and ludicrous our lifestyle is compared to the orderly motion of the galactic ocean.

Furthermore, this analysis goes to show how effective the game is at alleviating stress! Consider all the things you worry about in a day - the cost of living, pollution, rush hour traffic, long lines, crime, the environment, the fact that you'll never visit all the places you want to see, etc. All these things become insignificant in Katamari Damacy. You needn't worry about any issues - any objects - larger than your katamari until later on because for now they are simply obstacles, and anything smaller is all but an insignificant bump. To The Prince, ignorance is bliss. All that matters is to keep on rolling. Put your frustrations aside, block out all unneccesary data, and just keep on rolling. Just push and push, your katamari grows and grows, and before you know it you're towering over people and cars and buildings and mountains until the very curvature of the planet is a minute detail of the great cosmic tapestry.

There are a million possible interpretations of this depiction of reality. One could argue that the game is an advocate of Buddhism, declaring earthly luxuries as mere white noise. Or pe

"And that none of the 9/11 highjackers came from Iraq?"

I actually do realize that. We are in Iraq because the UN didn't have the balls to do anything more than say "stop! or we will say stop again". WIth the French hardware that was found there it would appear that there was some under the table bartering going on - no wonder so many in Europe are pissed.

"Why do you paint all muslims with the same brush?"

Because Muslims in other countries act like savages and the muslims in this country are pressed to even disagree with the actions. Because when Muslims gathered to protest the Danish caricatures of Mohammed, they did so carrying signs like "exterminate those who insult Isalm" "Europe you will have your 9/11". Sorry, I don't buy the polotically correct B.S. that says that Islam is a peaceful religion.

Since from your constant referals to "your administration" I gather that you are not in the US, all I gotta say is keep it up, we might not come to your rescue when the Muslims get it in thier head to kick your asses and take over. After pulling Europe's ass out of the fire on more than one occassion, and the fact that the US pays a large chunk of the ever-so-worthless UN's bills, you'd think there'd be a little more respect.