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China Rewards Porn Snitches
MinimeMongo writes that the "Associated Press reports that China's police ministry on Sunday handed out rewards of up to $240 to people who reported pornographic Web sites in a campaign to stamp out online smut...The online crackdown is part of a sweeping official morality campaign launched this year on orders from communist leaders."
Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception. With China facing ongoing crises in both those human conditions, isn't porn the State's best comrade?
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make install -not war
So, in order to collect the reward, do you have to answer any questions? Like "How do you happen to know about this pornographic web site?"
Think about it: You get to see a porn site, and you get $240!!!
Wankers of the World, UNITE!!!!
Could be a good thing if it ultimately puts another thorn in the side of spammers who promote those pr0n web sites. Could be a bad thing if it is nothing but pure censorship.
A government that excuses its actions by acting as a sort of parental figure, is a corrupt government indeed. Human beings are critical thinkers, thank you very much, and it is an insult to the intelligence of a Billion+ Chinese if China's government thinks it should "protect" them from "harmful content" so that they don't "harm" themselves.
I know that's not the real reason, but seriously, who does China think it's fooling?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
In Saudi, all Web traffic from all ISPs are forwarded through central array of proxy servers, which is then censored to "preserve their Islamic values" by "filtering the Internet content to prevent the materials that contradict with our beliefs or may influence our culture."
Forcing porn to go underground (anybody who thinks that outlawing it is going to stop it needs to be less naive) will certainly improve conditions for porn industry workers, in much the same way that forbidding drugs and prostitution has made life so much better for junkies and whores. Making it so a porn actress can't go to the police when something happens will certainly make her life so much better.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
You know, the stereotypical politician is meant to be a Used-Car salesman. And frankly, I'd rather have a whore for president than somebody who is as naive as Bush...yes you heard me correctly - I'd rather have a sell-out like Kerry than somebody who actually stands for what they believe in - like Bush. I believe that ruling the most powerful country in the world means that you have demonstrate some flexibility. This is isn't frikkin' Little League, where there is Good and Bad, Right & Wrong. There are lots of shades of grey, and they all need to be dealt with in their own way. Most Americans don't want to look into the causes behind the 9/11 butchers, but the fact is that they were idealists too - true believers to their cause and look what they accomplished. The same goes for Lenin, Mao, e.t.c. When your politicians are selling out to the highest bidder, that's when you know everything's ok in the world. If they start taking up causes, and preaching The Right Way & The Wrong Way or With Us or Against Us policies, that's when it's time to be afraid.
My Favourite Meme
Never underestimate the will of the people in stifling themselves.
The CCP isn't doing this because they care, they're doing it because they are afraid if they don't the people will get upset, and it will undermine them.
"Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture, as much as in early puritan America, earlier Europe, and the modern middle east (complete with killing adulterers)
Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.
The internet is not a magic bullet that routs around all 'censorship'. It's a constant battle, and requires education. Unfortunately in "communist" China the government has decided to try to stamp out porn rather then try to err on the side of freedom (not particularly suprising).
Anyway, I'm off to China for my new bussness venture of anonymously setting up porn sites and then turning them in for a reward. Zai Zhen, bai bai le~.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Part of our system of voting requires us to think about the candidates that we think has a chance. It is a clear side-effect of a first-past-the-post voting system. As explained there:
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First-past-the-post encourages the tactical voting technique known as "compromising": voters are encouraged to vote for one of the two options most likely to win, even if it is not their most preferred option.
If enough voters vote using this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes a form of runoff voting where the first round is held in the court of public opinion. This can give substantial power to the media as voters will tend to believe their viewpoint on who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election and use that viewpoint to decide where a "tactical" vote would be (in the voter's opinion) best used. This can also become a system promoting votes against more so than votes for.
If you go on and read about tactical voting, you'll see it says that "Duverger's law suggests that, for this reason, first-past-the-post election systems will lead to two party systems in most cases." Quite discouraging if you ask me; I'd love to see more parties involved.
I just read some of these articles yesterday trying to learn about the British election system. It's very interesting stuff. Sometimes I wish I was a political science major...
The space unintentionally left unblank.
Look at a person like Bush - apparently his thinking has been something like this:
./ !!
Get baptised [sic] or 'born again' or whatever is the cheap and easy way. Now you're a good person - a 'Christian' full of the Holy Ghost.
It sounds to me like you hate Bush and are working backwards from that to deem his faith lacking or in some way not sincere. You also seem to be working from the specific to the general, which is sometimes called a Fallacy.
My guess is that you already hate Christians or Christianity, because later you say this:
you can be a hedonist and highly moral, you can be a Muslem [sic] or a Communist and highly moral; whether you can be a Christian and highly moral is another question, which I can't answer, since I'm not one.
So your logic is:
hedonist == Potentially Moral
Muslim == Potentially Moral
Communist == Potentially Moral
Christian == Unknown because you're not one
So either you actually are a hedonist-Muslim-Communist and you can attest to all of them, or (perhaps more likely) you don't really understand Christianity, but realize full well that it's okay to vilify and hate the religion in the USA. My guess is the later, but either way... whatever... your assertions are baseless. But don't let logic stop you from posting to
Actually, this is a key difference between Christianity and both Islam and Communism. Both of the latter two religions (yes, Communism is a religion) promise world peace once the entire world is subjugated and morality externally imposed. The word 'Islam' is the name for the promised peace that will result once all the earth is subject to Sharia law. The word 'Communism' is the name of that state of peace and well being that is promised once all of the old capitalist systems have been overthrown and replaced with a world wide commune.
Christianity, on the other hand, while sharing the goal of promoting morality, dismisses the possibility of achieving true morality by external control as impossible. Consider the strong willed child whose parents make him sit down: "I'm may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside." For Christians, true morality begins when God changes the heart, and transforms from the inside, and finally manifests itself in external behaviour. World peace will never be achieved until Christ returns to destroy this universe and move all those who have been internally transformed to a new heavens and a new earth. (In some interpretations, there is first a period of 1000 years of externally enforced peace on this Earth with Christ as the ruler - which ultimately fails, proving the need to destroy this world and start over).
Christians who think that true morality can be externally imposed are heretics. The heresy is called "legalism" or "phariseeism" after the Jewish sect prominent in the New Testament. A more subtle mistake Christians make is to think that they, as an individual, can transform their own lives by imposing a set of rules on themselves. This is no more effective than having the government do it - the result is an annoying "holier than thou" attitude. In Christian doctrine, the process of becoming truly righteous must begin with a supernatural internal change initiated by God Himself.
The use of external force is reserved for Secular Government. The specific example Paul points to was the secular Roman government - but this does not mean that officials of the government cannot be religious. The purpose of government is to externally impose morality - for example, "do not murder" is a moral principle which the government attempts to enforce. ("Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.") It is supposed to be understood, however, that this external enforcement does not produce true righteousness, but only enables the society to survive.
Attempts to externally enforce sexual morality are similarly founded on the survival of society. The healthy growth and development of children is best promoted by a stable two parent family. This principle is the basis on which the government claims the authority to take children away from a clearly disfunctional family (locking kids in closets, etc). It used to be the principle on which our government implemented sanctions against adultery. It used to be the principle on which premarital sex was sanctioned - it tends to create children in need of a home. It is also the principle on which gay marriage should not be allowed. It is one thing for people who will never raise children to fool around and cut their own lives short. It is a more serious matter to bring children (e.g. adopted) into that environment.