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World Summit On The Internet And IT
eegad writes "The Seattle PI reports on the upcoming first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva on December 10-12. 192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet (a little late, eh?) including ways to deal with spam, a possible "digital solidarity fund" to help developing nations, and discussion of UN regulation. The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action". Some countries plan on asking for a UN commission to study new ways of running the Internet aimed at the 2005 phase. The official website will provide coverage of the event. How come I wasn't invited?" The Washington Times also has a piece on it, as well. We had covered this a bit before.
192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet
I hope Nigeria doesn't have any sort of veto power at this summit.
Trolling is a art,
Stay the fuck away from my Internet.
That said...
It might be nice to encourage people to use bittorrent to download porn. The bandwidth savings would be akin to quadrupling router capacity across the Net.
Or, maybe fix email by requiring everybody to send ciphered messages only. Require/encourage mail servers to permit a user to provide it a gateway public/private key through which all incoming email must satisfy (not the same as your personal public/private key.) Solve spam and nine-tenths of Echelon with one single kick in the balls.
Then, get over this self-inflicted trauma over raw sockets. Raw sockets are cool. Raw sockets + UDP can all but eliminate the nastier p2p problems, like how to work through firewalls, as well as how to send data anonymously. These are good things. Let good people do good things with good technology.
But we can do all of these things through education. We don't need the UN/Geneva/Britney Spears to tell us how this whole thing should work.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Check out the NYTimes article, it points out a bit of the criticism of the whole process.
Link (reigstration req'd, blah blah)
not really. considering it takes OUR government 10-20 years to recognize technology. i would say this is a rather fast turn around for a body of government set up by bodies of government.
I heard they are going to make Al Gore in charge of the whole meeting.
;)
After all, he did create the thing, right?
The best thing they can do is make it illegal for spammers to get safe harbor anywhere.
Or, failing that, to make sure that spam only gets sent to the country of origin somehow. That would eliminate 90% of my spam, which is from the US.
Probably it will only end up in another treaty the US will refuse to ratify, like Kyoto and the International Court of Justice.
for great justice
There's an interesting article about this at El Reg. I'm pretty worried about what's going on there; for all the failing of ICANN, it's always been sort of emblematic of the prevailing idea in western countries to keep bureaucracy from throttling the Internet. Think what you will about various nations bad handling of Internet traffic and user rights, the over-corporatization of the net, and ICANN's distasteful tactics over domain handling; the Internet as we know it is a far cry from what it might have been had the ITU been allowed to be the driving force behind it.
I don't relish the idea of the type of bureaucrat who brought us WIPO deciding by fiat where the greatest communications revolution in human history is going to go.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Isn't this the technological equivolent (time-wise) of the U.N. right now in 2003 trying to decide what to do about this 'Hitler' guy? To quote my favorite Vorlon: The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
But maybe I'm just pessimistic and jaded...=)
Gotta love the U.N. Watch them protect the Internet the same way they protected the safe havens in Bosnia.
Since they are just a debating society, watch them spend all their time debating about the Internet and doing nothing about it.
Wait. We have that already. It's called Slashdot!
I have made a spam fighting software eigenpoll
If you know something about spamtools
please go vote.
Knud
Organizations like the UN, unaccountable by most means in their actions, will only try to leverage further control by government authorities to make sure we're all trackable and monitored for "appropriate behavior". Nothing good will come from this. Kiss the "free" anarchy-style of the Internet goodbye.
I know others ahve already commented about this, but honestly what good can come from this? I don't want any part of the internet under UN control. Right now the internet is mostly apolitical and thats the way it should stay. I cannot believe this could lead to anything good.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yes, he did take credit for inventing the Internet in a CNN interview (despite the fact that it was created years before he ever got to Congress).
Since the U.N. is inherently a governing entity, it will invariably feel the need to regulate everything it can. It is in its very nature to regulate. They even managed to throw in the word "solidarity". Every time I hear that word, my ears perk up.
You like the internet just the way it is? Give control over to the UN. Look at their track record, they've never done anything but have meetings on when to have the next meeting. It's a powerless, functionless, purposeless body that exists only to put all the beggers seeking favor from the worlds rich democracies in one place.
It's like putting almost all the Mormons in Salt Lake city. If we didn't they'd be at your house all weekend, and you couldn't have a moment of peace in which to enjoy the game. Any game.
And it will probably be Darl McBribe.
If the UN starts arguing about the net, it'll be a good ten years before any one nation can do anything definite with the net. Hopefully by that time freenet will be fast and stable, and greedy politicians won't be a problem for the net anymore.
I vote yes on both accounts. To hell with globalization efforts, all you do is exploit everything and everyone for your own gain.
The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action".
Person 1: Sounds like it was created by an MBA.
Person 2: Actually, it was a committee.
Person 1: OK, a committee of MBA's.
Person 2: A committee of MBA's who work for the government!
Both: (run away and hide under cubicles)
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
.. and they'd like their joke back.
Sorry, but they can't manage anything. The United Nations is a failed idea looking for relevance. Unfortunately anything they take over becomes a mockery of what it is supposed to.
Worse, the UN routinely caves into member states that are notorious violators of human rights. What good can from an organization that has human rights committees comprised of brutal dictatorships? Of disarnament committees run by the same?
Sorry, a UN managed internet would simply give certain 3rd world countries (and some European) a new means to bash or otherwise attempt to restrict prospering Western countries. It would advance anti-Jewish attitudes, probably going as far as to restrict Israel! China would be given free reign to threaten Tiawan and run ramshackle over tibet. Can you imagine what these nations would want to classify as SPAM?
No thank you. ICANN might be annoying but at least we can lay hands on them
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
See the website of this group at http://www.wsis-pct.org/
The Working Group is holding a workshop "Free Software, Free Society" with a group of top speakers, including Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project, and Lawrence Lessig.
I'm a programmer working at the W.H.O., which is just down the road from the exibition hall, so I've been looking at the schedule to see what events might be interesting or useful to attend.
Looks like a lot of local linux users (see G.U.L.L) are planning to attend at least the panel with Larry Lessig and RMS on Wednesday. RMS is also speaking on Thursday.
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
Why do developing nations need the Internet?
Isn't that putting the cart before the horse...
By definition maybe what they really need is heavy infrastructure development?
Giving bushmen WWW access isn't going to help any nation develop.
"Spam could be outlawed once and for all worldwide, with harsh penalties for violation."
Should we apply Marxist solutions: gulags (Stalin), death farms (Cambodia) or rape camps (Serbia)?
"An international agreement of standards for content could bring freedom of information to places where there is a lack of information"
Yes. We know that government control always makes things more free!
"Centralized taxation..."
Yes. The greedy ruling class must get a cut!
"Elimination of various objectively hateful websites from the internet, e.g., holocaust denial, neo-nazis, gun merchants"
And, of course, left-wing hate sites (MLM, neo-soviets) all remain uncensored.
This guy has had a deliciously evil series of inspriations. My favorite is the generator that traps a spambot in an (almost) infinite loop and feeds it upto 26^49 totally bogus E-Mail addresses. An even more evil thing to do would be to bounce the spambots through a large network of pages on many different sites carrying only a relatively small number of bogus addresses each. That would make this stunt alot harder for the spammer to detect. This writing more of these traps would make a cool hobby....
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Possible dupe (from Friday), but interesting nonetheless.l ?tid=95
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/12/05/1447255.shtm
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
This summit is a betrayal of it's original ideals, and especially of the World's poor. Various groups are intending to strongly oppose this travesty; there is more information and here.
Where oh where is freedom of expression in all this? Or is that too much of a threat to the organizations sponsering this summit?
WSIS might sound like a boring bureaucratic exercise, but there's a strong chance that governments are going to walk away from it with new international agreements in their pockets to pass laws in their own countries restricting the free flow of information.
Quoting the "WSIS? We Seize!" press release:
'While the official agenda of this UN/ITU Summit talks about "free access to information", "the digital divide" and "equality of opportunities", in reality its doors are closed, its discussions exclusive and the agendas of those who attend it concealed. What's more, the right to demonstrate and protest has been suspended in Geneva at this time, as the usual parade of despots and tyrants fly in to Switzerland to define policy for their own citizens, and the rest of the world, based on the agendas of corporate multinationals, media conglomerates and infrastructure owners.
Geneva03 is a temporary network of groups and individuals set up to carry out agitational, educational and communications work during both the G8 and the WSIS. Geneva03 considers it critical to show, during such a display of media power and control, that independent groups and people have the ability to create their own media, to share media, self publish, build networks and communicate freely and autonomously. That's why we've titled our events during this time WSIS? WE SEIZE! We do not consider that negotiation and supplication before the altar of the UN will produce information autonomy for all. Instead, we are taking our autonomy now, using the means and technologies at our disposal: the Internet, peer to peer networks, Free and Open Source Software, community wireless infrastructures, pirate television and radio and streamed media. Beyond questions of communications technology, We Seize! seeks to open a wide-ranging discussion on the new social conditions that constitute today's world about which the WSIS has little or nothing to say: media concentration, expansive intellectual property regimes, casualised and immaterial labour and migration.
We insist that this urge to speak, to hear and be heard, is irrepressible. The Geneva03 group returns to Geneva following major attempts at repression during the G8 this year, in which the group were targetted by police whilst running an independent media centre. No charges were brought against the group, because - whatever the establishment would like us to believe - it is still lawful to freely express ourselves. We must, however, continue to exercise this ability, to expand and test it in diverse situations, if we are not to lose the freedom and potential that defines us as people.
Communication, language and information are essential to understanding both control and liberation in this new millenium. They are simultaneously the site of the most repressive and totalitarian suppression and disciplining we have seen since the 1950s and, we believe, the basis of a powerful, growing autonomous movement. Ultimately this movement must cut to the very heart of communication: for what we are able to articulate, we are able to create. We must speak of a new world without fear, and with all the creativity, energy and commitment we can find.'
(end quote)
If you want to know more, here are some useful links:
Good background article on Indymedia Global
WSIS? We Seize!
The World Forum on Communication Rights
Polimedia Lab
Civil Society news centre for the WSIS
Indymedia UK WSIS 2003 section
Mod the monkey redundantly redundant already!
What is wrong with you people!?!
Let's face it, if we had a cent for every IQ point our leaders have, the sum total of our entire government wouldn't be enough to buy a happy meal at McDonald's. That being said, do we really want to trust these people with determining the best policies for the system???
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
all the brillian ideas that they will come up...
1 - Tax on email at ISP level (never mind they use their SMTP servers or hijacked others...)
The list goes on...
how long until
New rules:
1 - No individual anonymity
2 - No free speech for individuals
3 - No national information sovereignty.
4 - Taxation to pay for enforcement of the new rules
5 - Jails to house all the new criminals.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And that has what, exactly, to do with the ITU's attempted (and probably failed before it starts) internet power grab?
sulli
RTFJ.
Wired has a story about a huge screen that you'll be able to send messages to. Apparently it's within line of sight of Kofi Annan's hotel room, so if you want to sound off, why not drop him a text?
The whole point of the (modern) UN is the LACK OF accountability. Nations are becomming less and less accountable to their own citizens (the U.S. being the prime example of this), and the UN is an additional buffer between citizens and the free market to the government bodies. One huge collosal (basically socalist) multi-government entity controlling the internet will simply lead to wreckless regulation. Your cowardly attempt to justify the supposed need for tracking terrorists is just another example of statist thinking. As the UN grows, so does it being a TARGET for terrorism. I'll take my freedom, thanks, over your need to feel protected.
Even some of the architects of Kyoto have admitted it was useless BS. What is it with you ideologes who refuse to let a bad idea die? Why are people who are so political and so wonky on policy always the most ignorant and ill informed? It's weird. Ideology just murders the mind.
Kyoto is all politics, and has nothing to do with environment.
Assuming that the baseless claims of man-made global warming were true, it does not help the problem since Kyoto mandates that "Approved" countries increase greenhouse gas emissions (and other countries cut theirs).
If you look at the countries that increase theirs and the countries that cut theirs, you can see that the main goal is damaging the economies of certain countries.
If it really was all about its claimed environmental goal, it would cut emissions for all countries.
But the best thing they can do is have a talkfest accomplishing nothing, like all the other UN world summits.
So how exactly is my previous comment a non sequitur? I'm just pointing out that the UN is accomplishing stuff, even when the US doesn't want it to. It's your country that's trying hard to ditch the UN (leaving us with nothing instead), so repeating your government's propaganda doesn't impress me. Now if you would show some initiative and try to find out for yourself what the UN does (like the WHO for example), that would impress me.
I read the Draft "Plan of Action" availible. It reads a lot like a polictical document. The scary part is the one about the un taking over control of the internet, but it mostly says that everyone should have access to the internet and it should be geared towards all languages and cultures.
.. giving starving people food and water. That seems like a higher priority than internet access. Furthermore, one of the questions in the Faq is "Will one language or culture takeover the information society?" The answer says that we should encourage people to provide content in all languages. First of all, I think Internet is already heavily US centric perhaps because it was originally its network. Secondly, that is a pipe dream just like everything else in the summit.
Thats great, but I think the UN should be focused on oh I don't know
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
does that mean i can take all those asain spam bots off my mail server filter?
Never underestimate the logical power of sarcasm
All the UN needs to know about spam is right here. >:-)
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
+1 B5 Quote
The same guy who created the Freedom from pornograhy week and the same administration who's suing hundreds of people for obscenity charges? :)
"Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.
Status: False"
Status: True. "Invent" and "Create" mean the same thing in the context.
"Origins: No, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way"
Yes, he did. He clearly took credit for its creation.
"but that he was responsible for helping to create the environment (in an economic and legislative sense) that fostered the development of the Internet."
You are making up things Gore did NOT say in the interview, and then making your argument based on that. However, in the interview, Gore said he created it.
See his quote:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet"
"To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean the same thing: If they mean the same thing, then why have the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet when he never used that word"
Because invent is a more commonly used word. It is a correct paraphrasing, however, and Gore looks to be a liar with either word.
"Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate"
It is easy to evaluate. The Internet already existed before Gore got to Congress. Therefore, he could not create it.
"that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being,"
That claim is flat-out false, as much a lie as Gore's claim of inventing it. The Internet existed before Gore's involvement.
Let's see - programmed by superior intelligence to repeat the same rhetoric over and over? Is it the doll or is it Ann herself?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Are you sure there are 192 nations participating, and not 192.168 nations? What about the 10.x or the 169.254 nations you insensitive clods?
I hate sigs.
They should start by banning frontpage as a tool to create webpages. Yes that would mean they'll have to recode their official website as well
[alk]
There's a good summit blog that seems to be covering the thing fairly intensively...
Sorry, a UN managed internet would simply give certain 3rd world countries (and some European) a new means to bash or otherwise attempt to restrict prospering Western countries. It would advance anti-Jewish attitudes, probably going as far as to restrict Israel! China would be given free reign to threaten Tiawan and run ramshackle over tibet. Can you imagine what these nations would want to classify as SPAM?
This is insightful? I know a lot of people don't like the UN or Europe for that matter. But this is getting ridiculous.
World domination by unelected idiots. First, the International Criminal Court and now, this. Rather than being a forum for countries to resolve issues not resolvable directly, the UN is going to impose there view on all of us. I'd rather have George Bush in charge because he can be voted out!
"...Carlos Achiary, national director of Information Technology Argentina, said many governments are frustrated because the Internet is having a tremendous effect in their countries, but they have no place to submit their requests, complaints or suggestions...." /dev/null anyone?
I have family living in B.A. - I visited Arg. for a few weeks last November. After looking at miles of black and white marble columns and hand-worked wrought-iron that enclosed their WATER PROCESSING PLANT in B.A. - I felt no pity for the bureaucrats at this service arm who now cry poor. The unabashed "we are Euro, ergo better than the rest of [south] America, so let's have palacial water plants..." The whole place was shocking. (parts beautiful, yes) But the officials I met.... inept, corrupt, nepitistic, backwards - maybe they should get their house in order before looking to "suggest" some of their 'winning insight' to the rest of us.
(did you hear about the folks of B.A. suing a new (chilean owned) utility that, after months of written warnings removed the power-leacher-wires from the poles? Yep, they had the audacity to sue the company for cutting them off b/c they'd tapped in illegally. It's still in the courts, the folks there think "it is our right to have electricity" - just as it is this guys' "right" to have a say on riding coat-tails.)
build something, contribute, dont' back-street drive.
If she floats, she's a witch.
Heise.de has an article about the interetaccess on this conference: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-08.12.03-00 6/ (in german). The main info: Internetaccess for participants on this conference will cost about 128Euro. Participants from the third world, already having problems to bring up the money to attend, might not be able to afford the Internetaccess on the "World Summit on the Information Society". An attendee from Bulgaria mentioned that in Bulgaria this is about the amount of money you have to live from ... for two months.
Nils
It's pretty damn insightful, and we need some counterweight to the paranoia.
for great justice
Every time I hear about another organization taking it upon themselves to do some global rule-making, I can't help wondering: from whence do these organizations derive their authority? I didn't vote for these people. I don't even know who they are.
Yes, I know. Sovereign nations have engaged in international diplomacy, treaty signing and the like since time immemorial. I still question the authority of those who would make rules without being elected.
Just like our politicians refuse to do anything that isn't in the best interests of their constituency. Where there's a price, or the potential for substantive political gain, there's a way.
Debian looks pretty up to date to me. Of course I'm typing this on a machine running Win98.
Kyoto would not exempt developing nations for the purpose of moving the polluting industries to these developing countries; Kyoto specifically states that pollution is a global problem that needs dealing with on a global scale. The exemption is made because of a) the costs of reducing pollution; developing nations simply can't afford it as long as they're in their developing stages; and b) fairness; the polluters should pay to get their mess cleaned up.The developed nations have mainly caused the problem and have the money to pay for cleaning up their own mess; some of these nations are now trying to deny their responsability in the most redicilous ways.
The ICC has already shown its true colors in attempting to charge various U.S. citizens for "warcrimes" in the U.S.-led action in Iraq - exactly to what advantage of the U.S. citizen is it if the U.S. would need to subjucate itself to such a body before taking actions it feels are necessary for its defense?
So since when is (offensively) invading a sovereign nation defence? Invasions are not defensive, what ever weaselwording ("pre-emptive strikes") they're wrapped in. If your army attacks a sovereign nation without you being attacked by their army first, you're the agressor.
What you state here comes down to an offender asking himself what good a criminal court does him. The court is there to make you behave, your personal advantage in it is it makes you a more civilized person/state; better fit to positively function in (global) society. The problem with some nations is they can't accept authority that might judge their actions as wrong, just like some offenders can't ("Judge, who are you to tell me what to do, for I'm stronger than you.")
Mother-May-I was a stupid children's game in the fist place - a sovereign nation certainly sholdn't play it.
If you're trying render global consensus meaningless, there will be global consensus in condemning you. There is just to many nukes and other dangerous stuff in the world to throw these moderating diplomatic structures overboard and fight it out.
What part of "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" do you not understand? (being the first part of the second amendment)
Your selective quotation is just embarrassing. You have the right to bear arms, but only as part of a "well regulated militia".
Come to think of it the Second Amendment isn't even grammatical.
You know, China and Cuba are not the UN, they're only members. And the US, Europe and Canada who too are members of the UN rejected that stupid idea.
"The reason the US should sign on to Kyoto and the ICC is because it *is* in their best long-term interests. "
No, they are neither in the world's interests or the U.S.'s interest.
"Both of these treaties espouse what the US wants the world to believe are US ideals"
No, they do not.
"This makes the US look like a cynical, manipulative and untrustworthy nation "
The fault lies with previous administrations who made grave mistakes in moving toward these bad treaties.
"Does it really think it will be plunged into economic disaster by Kyoto"
Yet, that is what it is designed to do. If it won't do what it is was designed for, why bother? What else can you say about a treaty designed with the intent of damaging the US economy while boosting that of China.
" Does the US really believe it will be convicted by the ICC?"
Probably. The attempts to bring cases before it are based in ridiculous and often racist politics. (see the charges against Israelis)
"you think that the US has been involved in some genuinely inhuman behaviour, don't you think it serves your collective conscience better to have it out?"
Yeah, under the authority of a body that is mostly dictatorships with horrific human rights records.....
No-one should sign onto these treaties.
"Invasions are not defensive"
Yes they are, if they are retaliations aimed to stop aggression.
"If your army attacks a sovereign nation without you being attacked by their army first, you're the agressor."
The Iraqi military attacked US peacekeepers in the no-fly zones scores of times. They were told to stop. They refused. The Iraqi military was the aggressor. You also forgot a little thing called the Gulf War, where the Iraqi army engaged in aggression against several countries. Guess what: they violated the cease-fire.
" there will be global consensus in condemning you"
Especially when the concensus is based on such blatent lies about the Iraq situation as you have put forth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Instead, they do the following
misinterpret words like "Create" to make Gore's statement into something anywhere near true
Make up true quotes about Gore helping the Internet after its creation, and then lying by saying that Gore said this new quote instead of the false one he actually said.
Claim that the story came from Rush Limbaugh, when in fact it was on an aired CNN interview.
Attempt to snow the matter with facts about how Gore helped grow the existing Internet in an attempt to get bury his lie with true statements.
Sheesh. If Bush supporters were like this, they'd be claiming Bush's quote "where wings take dream" makes sense.
According to US Code TITLE 10, Subtitle A, PART I, CHAPTER 13, Sec. 311 every able-bodied male between 17 and 45 is a member of the militia.
Bad cut and paste.
Actual link is TITLE 10, Subtitle A, PART I, CHAPTER 13, Sec. 311
http://hubproject.org/en/?l=en
http://geneva03.net
hyperpoem.net
Your message is a perfect example of someone lying to cover for Gore.
"The big mistake of Gore detractors is that they keep trying to claim Gore said something he didn't."
The detractors in this matter tend to deal with what he actually said: "I took the initative in creating the Internet.". No matter how you cut it, he's making a false claim.
"The fact is that Gore did take the initiative in creating the Internet as we know it today"
I dealt with this already too. He did not say "as we know it today". This is an example of altering Gore's quote from what he said to something that is more true. He said "the Internet" Period. If there is any moderating factor, he said "took the initative" which places him first. Not someone who changed it later on.
"You go back and read interviews with Vint Cerf and other fathers..."
That part has been already mentioned as one of your strategies: bring up a bunch of quotes about how Gore was helpful after the Internet was created. However, none of the quotes show that his statement was anything but false.
"...and they agree that Al Gore was the only legislator who was taking them seriously and was interested in helping them."
Yeah yeah yeah. We all know how Gore helped the Internet long after its creation. But he still had nothing to do with its creation.
Your argument is like using how great the Model A was as proof that Ford took the iniative in creating "the automobile".
"This attack on your part shows desperation."
No, just comparing his actual quote to what happened. Gore was wrong. He does make mistakes. He's only human. Don't make him look worse by tying to insist that a false statement is true.
Don't you dare quote Fox News on anything. It is forbidden The only allowed news in the United States is from left-wing organizations like CNN. Factual and centrist Fox News must be censored.
"They are ineffective in enacting global resolutions only so long as the US ignores those resolutions and don't pay their share to the UN."
The US actually pays the lion's share of the US budget; a disproportionately high amount.
The UN wastes much of the money given to it. A perfect example of this is the fact that, at the height of the Ethopian famine, the UN wasted $80,000,000 to build a conference center in the country so it would have a place in Africa to hold more debates.
Actually, 90% of the spam that bounces from me is from the US, from US servers, and advertise US products.
And no-one is talking about 'subservience' here. You make the UN sound like some unaccountable shadowy organization hell-bent on bringing the US to its knees.
for great justice
How? He wasn't even voted in!
"You make the UN sound like some unaccountable shadowy organization hell-bent on bringing the US to its knees." Thats about right. Fortunately there not compentent enough to do so.
The fact that ICANN was not allowed to be present at this discussion underlies a key undercurrent of the meeting:
Wresting governance of assigned names away from America.
Never mind that the current system isn't remotely broken, or the fact that ICANN *is* an open organization with clearly defined channels for the international community to voice issues, or the even more fundamental fact of: *we fucking built it biyatch* -- this is a good apolitical example of what the United Nations has become: A knee jerk reactionary body whose goal is to counter perceived U.S. unilateralism.
What's so sad about this is that it will result in poorly governed, poorly engineered chaos.
Its ironic that in what is perhaps the only non-political open environment, the global-body which claims to believe in universality and equality is creating political and national partisanship.
Fuckers.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
"It's seriously like reading George Orwell. "
He said he created it, in his interview. He did not actually create it. What part of the historic record do you not understand?
"It's sad how desperate Republicans have become that they are not even willing to acknowledge credit where credit is due"
Not everyone who knows actual Internet history and how it contradicts Gore's claim is a Republican. I know I'm not one.
And I did give Gore credit for helping expand the Internet after it was created. I refuse to give him credit for creating it, since he had nothing to do with that.
"Instead they try to spin a yarn about how the opponents are lying by telling the truth."
The opponents are lying when they claim that his statement is true.
"Ahh...but, our companies are already moving abroad...to cheaper labor."
So? Why is it a big deal if foreigners can do the job for less? Reward the best workers.
"and exploit the cheap labor...."
How condescending. Free trade is never exploitation. You might get beaten with sticks if you go over to some place like India and tell the workers: "Sorry, you can't have your job. You are being EXPLOITED!!!"
Daily Summit - http://www.dailysummit.net is using trained journalists to provide comprenhensive blogged coverage of the summit.
Or some other nation that considers the citizens to be state property, to be monitored like sheep. I'm no sheep, and if the US was runned properly we wouldn't be the target of terrorists.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Centrist!
Hee hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha!
Fox News! Factual! Centrist! Oh stop it! Ha ha ha ha, stop it, my face hurts!
But such casual use of the "human rights offenders" brush can't be ignored.
To quote Dershowitz: "holding Israel to a higher moral code than all other nations is indeed anti-semitic."
France's moral abuses in Africa this past year (for example) are of a scale and proportion *SO* much larger than Israel's. But
And let's not even talk about the internal human rights abuses that go on DAILY in EVERY SINGLE ARAB NATION. We're talking about countries that practice female genital mutilation (excuse the grafix) and don't allow their women to drive cars.
And not a peep from the UN. Europe regularly discusses embargoing Israel, and France did billions in business with
Get with the program. The UN *REGULARLY* bashes Israel. Its not that Israel is perfect. But the truth is IT IS NOT LESS PERFECT. (We imprison suspects without trial. We assasinate legitimate leaders. And NATO forces in Afghanistan had the worst collateral damage figures of any army in the last 20 years).
The UN's focus on Israel's actions *is* anti-semitic.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Just as long as the RIAA and MPAA weren't.
"....We assasinate legitimate leaders...."
Which ones were you thinking about? Uday and Qusay?
Casto is showing up in person.
So it shold all be double plus good right?
We really need the UN to fix something that isn't broken.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Everyone, please flame the UN.
When they realize that they can't maintain their own internet presence, maybe they'll give up on the whole "let's rule over freedom-loving American scum" idea.
If you go back and read your net.history you'd see this was a predictable outcome to a meeting of Tramposch (WIPO) Shaw (ITU) and Heath (ISOC) at an OECD meeting in Ottawa in 1996.
Don't kid yourselves, the UN knows it can't do this, the ITU, who have long been seeking relevence in a post TCP/IP workd will be their instrument.
As one of the founders of the alternative root movement I couldn't be happier about this. The more control that is siggested the more people relalize their own DNS servers edge control the internet and that there is no central control.
"Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh plans to propose, at the private meeting, that Icann be placed under the umbrella of the United Nations communications task force, which gives equal status to government, private sector and nongovernmental organizations.
Under his plan, the United States would have permanent presidency of an Icann oversight committee. The International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, and the International Chamber of Commerce would also have permanent membership, as would the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development."
Looks like they're IAHC'ing IAHC.
Need Mercedes parts ?
It goes back just a little further, to Mohammad.
"Pope Urban got tired of Christian infighting, as it were, and redirected masses of Christian crusaders at Turkish Muslims."
This took place in the modern-day Israel area, right? You forget how those areas became Muslim in the first place: a "Crusade" from the east, in which Arabian armies attacked, made the streets flow with blood, and forcibly converted most of the people to worship the Muslim god.
"Oops! The truth hurts, doesn't it? Christians, not some dirty Muslims, started this mess 1000 years ago."
The Muslims started this before. Yet, I do not blame the Muslims for this. The only Muslims I blame for anything are the ones who are terrorists.
"That's right! Kill a dirty Muslim and you're assured a place in heaven! Sound familiar?"
Yes. Mohammad's army was cajoled to do this (changing the name of the target, of course) before Urban was even born.
"Arguably, in fact, the United States has engaged in numerous terrorist activities including, by a minor interpretative effort of the term "terrorism","
There is no evidence of anything like this. Next...
"Maybe you ought to get your terminology and your history straight before you post stupid bullshit like that again."
Unlike you, I am capable ot taking historical situations back to their origins, and I only use the word terrorism when it applies.
"The internet of 1992 was a moderately obscure network, having been upgraded from a truly obscure network. Think what you will of Gore, but without his labors the network would not have been built out into all the institutions it was at that time (and maybe not even now), and it would not have been then built out into to the communities."
This has been mentioned before. We agree he helped improve the Internet. A lot. However, he had nothing to do with its creation.
"The network isn't just the cable in the ground, it's the clients too. He made that possible."
He still didn't create the thing. Using this argument is like saying that the guys who made the first highways "too the iniative in creating the automobile"
"While you might argue, inanely, that the enviroment would have been created eventually (a dubious assertion),"
That is not an argument I have made, but come to think of it, this probably would have come about without Gore, but likely a lot later.
Just giving credit where it is due, and denying it where it is not due.
"This morning, at 10 a.m. in Geneva, Switzerland, riot police raided the building where media activists from around the world had gathered to create a "polimedia lab", part of the "WSIS? We Sieze!" project of experimentation and popular reappropriation of global means of communication."
breaking news (red bar at top) at
http://www.phillyimc.org
2 Indymedia reporters from Philadelphia, as well as a local activist, are there now. This has just happened. Early reports indicate no violence; the owner of the building apparently is having them evicted. I think we should all take a note from how eager these chaps are to try to impede any non-corporate-owned media sources from covering events...
"No matter how far you push it back, someone will point to some other "atrocity" that the "other side" committed that required a response."
I was not pointing out that the Muslim aggression "required" the Christian response from Urban. I was just pointing out to you that Muslim aggression against the region targetted later in the Crusades was at least as horrific as the Crusades.
"Christianity has, historically, been one of the single bloodiest major religions in history"
That is true. Only the Atheist faith has rivalled it. Unless you perhaps count the thousands of years of human sacrifice practiced by Pagans as well.
"The Jews had the mantle before that and the Muslims are taking it up now."
The Jewish atrocity period had ended many hundreds of years before Christianity came along.
"and the Muslims are taking it up now."
In context, this is nothing compared to the orgy of expansion and rapine ordered by Mohammed when the Muslim faith first boiled out of Arabia. The current terrorists want to being back this reign of terror. "Muslim" and "terrorist" do not mean the same thing, even if the worst terrorists happen to have that faith.
"actually started the fight you're referring to (since I'm talking about the Crusades, not the Middle Eastern problems in the general area of Israel that are continuing to this day)"
You are changing your tune. You brough the Crusades up earlier as a justification for the current problems.
"Eventually, the Crusaders pushed as far as Jerusalem, but they got their asses kicked after awhile and got sent home whimpering (excepting a large group that got trapped in the area)."
"you can't tell your own bigoted personal views from reality). "
No, I've got no bigoted views.
"Sorry, but your personal, ignorant interpretations of a historical era that's not well understood don't count to anyone buy you and people like Jerry Falwell"
No, these are factual summarizations of historic events. Despite what Foul-Smell says (there, an interjection of opinion rather than fact: calling him a name!).
"Get it into your head that Iraq is nothing like Afghanistan. There were valid reasons to invade Afghanistan, but what the coalition is doing in Iraq is simply wrong. "
There are even more valid reasons to be in Iraq. What the coalition is doing in Iraq is very much right and good.
"There is no such thing as a legal regime change to protect your interests"
Yes there is. Look at the "Regime change" that Japan forced the US to visit upon it in WW2. Besides, the IRaq regime change was in Iraq's interest (to stop Saddam's mass executions) and in global interest (to remove the threat of a global terrorist/imperialist leader). Not just the U.S. interest.
"However, there are reports that state in very certain terms that Saddam was disarming prior to the US invasion"
No, he was refusing to disarm, balking inspectors at every chance. The fact that he had anything at all to disarm was a blatant violation of previous promises by Saddam, and the cease-fire.
"There is so much disinformation being spread that opinion polls show 70% of the American people believe things about Iraq "
So? At least a majority support proper action in regards to Iraq.
"I just try to get my facts straight and be reasonable"
But you have yet to make a valid argument to support your "Saddam should have stayed in office" argument.
"because if I'm not with you, I'm against you), and I don't like it."
If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you argue in favor of the terrorists in Iraa....
"And don't start again about the lying and murdering, because that is exactly what the US is doing today about and in Iraq"
No, it is telling the truth about Iraq, and it is killing terrorists who refuse to submit to arrest or who attack people. You made two lies in that sentence alone.
"while in the past the US itself co-founded the UN to avoid exactly this kind of unilateral descisions to topple foreign governments. "
"Unilateral US decision" is another common lie told about the situation (a lie you just used). A decision involving more than 50 countries is not "unilateral". Words mean things. Look up this one before using it again. Next time, tell the truth about things.
"And I'm sure he will be internationally condemned for it again"
Condemnation coming from places like France (who proppsed up Saddam and profitied from it) or despitic regimes like mainland China are a badge of honor. If you do something good, they condemn it.
The UN doesn't recognize the african "bushmen"
The UN barely even recognizes the American Bush, man!
"Reference to the Austrailian aboriginals as bushmen is often considered both archaic and derogatory."
Not only that, it is in the wrong continent. It is like referring to the Maori of New Zealand as "Injuns".
Hans Blix was acting as a representative of Nazi Ger... oops Germany's government, which is strongly pro-Saddam. His "conclusions" ignored overwhelming proof of weapons and repeated efforts to block inspections.
He is like the fireman walking around the burning house "Nothing burning here".
"It doesn't work that way. If you want to invade a country because you claim it harbors terrorists, the burden of proof lays with you"
Saddam Hussein, a major terrorist harbored there. Oops. we can't find him, can we? I guess he doesn't exist (just like the WMD's never existed because we cannot find them now).
"...Mr. Blix' speech on 1/27 2003: [un.org] ...."
Yet, in the very report he signed off on were indicidents detailed where Iraq balked inspectors. Yes, they were improving, but they were still balking the inspections.
What would you call a food inspector who checked out a KFC, found out that they routinely served crispy dead rats, and went to the public and said "Clean bill of health! Come and eat!".
You'd call him corrupt, of course. Blix did the same thing.
(Or maybe you would think it was OK if the restaurant was "improving" by serving 3 rats a day instead of 8)
"Post WWII, you Europeans developed a strong, strong aversion to nationalism."
There is still very strong nationalism, and it is of an ugly, intolerant stripe.
Countries including France and Sweden have laws that censor "outside" media, to keep foreign ideas out. Look at the "local content" laws.
Thank you for pointing out the fact that the years of the U.S. aiding Saddam are long over, and long since recitified. Ever since then, it has been Europe aiding and propping him up.
For a European to attack us for aiding him is ridiculous.