Slashdot Mirror
Texas Company's Legal Troubles Hold .iq In Limbo
aducore writes "According to The Inquirer, the (American) company running the Iraqi .iq domain name .iq is under criminal indictment and cannot transfer control. So no Iraqi organization can get a .iq domain name, including the government. Iraq's National Communications and Media Commission and the U.S. administrator in Iraq are trying to get ICANN to free up the domain."
I am not quite sure what state the infrastructure of Iraq is in, but I guess that fresh water, electricity and roads comes higher on the priority list.
.iq!"
"Hey, someone is blocking
"Hey, someone is blocking our watersupply!"
But Iraq didn't choose to outsource its domain. ICANN made the decision for them. Abhorrent as censorship is, did they have the right to do that? Should a body like ICANN be involved in politics?
Mod parent up!
Sad isn't it - the parent poster felt compelled to write that he's not unpatriotic just because (s)he was airing facts that don't support the government line.
Reminds me of when the story about BT blocking child pr0n sites was up and everyone who was raising concerns about the ramifications of that felt compelled to state they didn't condone child pr0n.
It's a dangerous path we're treading - where to raise a question immediatley pus you under suspicion of guilt...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
This is a heavy, conservative right-wing magazine.
Huh, what are you smoking? The Economist might be slanted towards pro-globalization and pro-free trade, but I usually find their op-eds well balanced - if they do take positions, they usually justify it quite well, and they present facts from both sides.
You want heavy, conservative right-wing? Try Time or Newsweek!
Please. They endorsed Bill Clinton in '92 and, just earlier this year, "Red" Ken Livingstone for mayor of London. Additionally, the editors have been outspoken in support of gay marriage and contraceptive education in third-world countries, to name a couple of traditionally "liberal" issues. And though they endorsed Bush in 2000, it seems highly improbable that they'll do so again this year, judging from the tone they've taken recently. For instance: one, and, more humorously, two. Finally, do you really think a magazine with a right-wing stick up its ass would produce a cover like this?
The Economist may be highly opinionated, but it's definitely not the "conservative, right-wing" mouthpiece.
This has got to be one the least of the problems the new Iraqi government is facing right now.
.org domain somewhere instead of .iq
Let's see: the new gov has a legitimity problem, a lot of people want to blow them up, neighbours are considering making things even harder, they have to justify a continued US presence to a skeptical population, they have to organize free elections in a country racked by terrorism, and hmm, oh yes, their web site is on a
Jeez, which problem should they tackle first?
Well now hold on a second... dangerous path, or common sense ?
Hicksville, population:2000.
A woman gets raped.
The police, after a long investigation, are at a loss.
They decide to run a wide-scale voluntary DNA test (can't force them anyway, at least not here).
700 of the men fit in the age group that the woman could at least identify the rapist into.
699 cooperate and have a DNA sample taken.
1 does not cooperate.
No matter what excuse this 1 person comes up with (civil liberties, slippery slope, dangerous path, yadda yadda), please tell me how the police should just say "Okiedoke, your fair right" and not have a closer look and see if maybe there's a different/another reason for him not to cooperate ?
And that is the police, who at least have to live by some form of rules, however arbitrary they may seem sometimes.
In the case of people saying "We shouldn't block websites that are arbitrarily judged to be child pornography websites", you better understand that a vast majority of the population is going to at least raise an eyebrow. It is in the best interest of those people to state that they explicitly don't condone child pornography, and are only trying to point out that there will be unjust collateral damage. Though that will only offer a partial redemption.
And it doesn't help that people like Hugh Russ Campbell have used these same arguments before, and then get convicted (on a guilty plead) of not only owning and distributing child pornography, but creating it as well.
With such circumstances - well, I'm sorry, but I too would be suspicious of such people.
The difference between suspecting a person and doing something about it is the 'vigilante' aspect. If one is worried about vigilantes, deal with them - but you can't blame a person for having a pretty reasonable opinion for this day and age.
Just my 2 cents.
Yeah, the economist is left-wing, alright. That is why they supported the war in Iraq to begin with, are strong proponents of globalization, and free-trade. All strong left-wing policies. But then again they have those crazy right-wing views like saying that monopolies like Microsoft need to be delt with more harshly than they currently are.
</sarcasm>
The economist is neither left-wing nor right-wing, nor are they unbias. I wouldn't really call them libertarian either (look at their recent write up on the libertarian candidate to see that he is not treated as one of their flock). They have a unique bias that you don't find in other papers. If I had to charaterize it, I would say that they care first and foremost for the economy as a whole as well as world stability. This is contrasted with traditional conservatives who put the "rights" of individual businesses first and foremost. Sometimes these interests coincide and sometimes they don't. They are pragmatic, acknowledging that market forces, while overwelmingly positive, sometimes have negative effects on society. However, unlike liberals, their proposed remedies always involve fixing the root supply-and-demand cause of the problem, rather than trying to enforce expensive brute force legislation that must constantly fight against the market forces. Furthermore, I must agree with your parent, that when they do write opinion pieces they do a much better job of backing up thier point of view than most. Even though I don't always agree with them, they always make me think.
Lastly, they do attempt (and in my opinion usually succeed) in presenting unbiased reports of the other points of view. They do this because they have a genuine interest in understanding the dynamics of the political and economic systems that we are engulfed in. They are above all pragmatic and realise that you cannot develop an educated opinion or course of action if you ignore the elements that make up the situation.