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Should the UN Replace ICANN?
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news has a story on how some developing countries want control of the assignment of network names and numbers turned over to an international body, such as the UN's ITU (International Telecommunication Union)."
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You'd just be replacing incompetence with incompetence.
Call Al Gore and find out what he thinks, afterall he invented the thing.
that'll be fun ;)
You want control turned over to an international body. OK, that sounds reasonable. But the UN? I mean... how about somebody with a little more tech savvy and a little less politics?
...can you imagine trying to register as domain name with a bureauacracy like the UN in charge?
Jeez....
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
We can do without them coming out with useless new TLDs such as .travel.
if need be. ;o)
The UN are becoming Hare Krishnas!
ICANN has some children that need to be molested?
Maybe it should be an international thing, but NOT the UN.
The UN is structured around things that have nothing to do with international names.
Overrepresented countries like France would probably love it, but underrepresented countries like India might not like it so much.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
There should only be enough organization to support the technical aspects of making the internet run. Politics and governance will be the end of what makes the internet great.
as much as I dislike ICANN, as they're hopelessly corrupt, I'd take them any day over the United Nations. but it's a matter of choosing "We'll ignore anything you say unless you give us lots of money" over "we'll ignore anything you say unless you give us lots of money, and then we'll take 6 years making a decision on it".
hrm. can we choose c) none of the above?
So since there is so much corruption within the UN (and every other monolithic machine out to help save the world from itself) wouldn't we just wind up with someone getting away with stealing the microsoft domain and using it to sell pirated copies from a country that doesn't protect IP?
Its all ours.. Al Gore invented the Internet! Stop this madness - this would be like letting them have electricity too.
my sig file is somewhere below..
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
Rich spammers get the packets, developing nations get some food, and UN bureaucrats get a fat payoff.
Yeah, that's the ticket. Time to bone up on my French.
Tney'd send spammers like 15 resolutions telling them to stop and the the spammers would be likt, "screw your resolutions, man" and then some country would be like, "Fuck this, the UN sucks" and they'd take matters into their own hands.
IANAL
I mean there's so much corruption in there, just look at the food for oil program.
I think anyone seriously considering such a move should attend at least 10 UN sessions throughout their full excruciating length in order to get a sense of the beaurocratic monster this organization has become. If that doesn't immediately relegate this ridiculous proposal into the shredder, then I don't know what will... Winston Churchill is being quoted as having said this about the U.N.: Use it when possible, ignore it when necessary. I believe this is a statement in itself ;-)
ICANN was also still in a confusing semi-democratic phase at the time (this seems to be steadily decreasing) and also weirdly self-imploding. Ester Dyson also gave the most contentless speech I think I have ever heard - no doubt to ensure minimum offense to anyone in the audience.
As with all these things wheels within wheels... but I do wish the call for some form of ICANN democracy would renew rather than lose it to a not very democratic body (i.e. the ITU) or to the corporations (kinda where it is now).
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Say NO to the UN.
BH/IP: Black Helicopter over internet protocol.
If there is one thing that can be consistently learned from history, it's that centralized power is remarkably often the best solution.
The UN can't respond to something as catastrophic as genocide w/ in a year or two of its happening, and normally then it's "ah, ... ". This is nothing but a power grab - their interest is not in humanities welfare. I vote NO on rewarding incompetence and nepotism.
Yeah ICANN could use a few tweeks, and have tried to push evil on us once, but all in all they work for the vast majority of domains. So if it isn't broken, why fix it? I don't give up a known evil for an unknown one?
goto http://click click grunt click hiss grunt click snap snap click grunt grunt dot com.
Well, if the UN can manage CEB, CTBTO, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA, FAO, UNCTAD, HLCM, MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD, IANWGE, IAPSO, and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)
UN's record isn't that great IMHO
Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?
Honestly, I think that this is just going to turn into a big OFF-bashing thread.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
The first problem is that they are hardly open. They charge a LOT for any of their documentation, which is split into many, many books. Unless you start off as rich as Bill Gates, you're unlikely to ever get enough of the texts to actually know what the standard even is.
The second is that they operate in a manner that resembles a medieval court. I half expect to see things by them with a royal seal and a coat of arms.
I have a much, much better idea and it's cheap. Let me run it. I would do a lot better job than either ICANN (ICAN'T) or the UN ever could. Given that most DNS servers cache, and therefore the actual throughput to replicate any top-level changes would be relatively low, I wouldn't need much more bandwidth than I already have.
(How much bandwidth do you need, when changes can take days to get anywhere? And how fast does the top-level domain change, anyway? I didn't know they added TLD extensions on a daily basis. Most of the actual domain names registered are registered with registrars lower down the heirarchy.)
If the DNS system switched from tree to grid, which it easily could and partially has, then a central administration system has nothing to do. Which is fine with me, if someone takes me seriously and gives me the job. Hey, I've no problem with world Governments paying me to do nothing, the way they do with Microsoft.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They are accountable to no one, and know it.
Who is ICANN accountable to?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Anyone remember the Oil for Food program? The UN was given control over selling Iraqi oil and only giving Iraq humanitarian goods in return. Instead of doing this, they siphoned out a significant amount of money and oil for personal use. If they would take money that was supposed to go to the Iraqi people (not Saddam) for their own personal gain, what would they do if they controlled all domains and TLD's?
The UN is not the organization to trust the internet to. Yes, I know that ICANN isn't the internet, but if the UN gains control of what ICANN does, what else are we going to give them?
Seriously, your comment summed it up nicely.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Its a network of networks and those networks that connect to it have developed it quite nicely with less government intervention then expected.
http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,720 8,11393890%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
Of course, the only way around this is for the UN to take ICANN by force, which won't happen in the United States, whether by the US government or especially by the UN. Until Vint Cerf at ICANN changes his mind, the internet will not be governed by the UN.
- - - - - Fear not the reaper, but my shiny white teeth.
We let other nations use our Network as a courtesy, if they don't like it, they can build their own network like China did. Most of the SPAM comes from outside the US anyway.
After all, they are made up of communications companies. See their website.
In all fairness, it would make sense to move control to the ITU. Even though there will be a lot of people who will complain about a "political body", ie the UN controlling such things. Sure the UN is a Polititcal Body. So is any government, if you haven't already noticed; but the UN does more than just political work. think UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, WHO, and the list goes on.
Is there going to be political influences in the ITU if it controls ICANN? Sure, just as there is now.
If I had a say in this, I'll vote yes. They are the body to control worldwide tele/data communications.
I think that ICANN should replace the UN!
The UN has got to be the most currupt buerocracy on the planet. They just had the biggest corruption scandal ever. Bigger than ENRON and WorldCom combined.
Oh, and their peacekeepers are busy abusing children.
With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.
They also constantly bash israel without ever mentioning that the palestinean side is not exactly peaceful either.
And they have recently decided that what is happening in sudan is not genocide. I guess they will decide it was genocide after all when everybody is dead. Like they did in ruanda.
The UN should be dismantled or at least seriously reformed. They should not get any more responsibilities, since they are obviously unable to cope with the responsibilities they have in an ethical manner.
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
Perhaps we should create a new organization... ;)
the ICANN't
from the gold-medal-in-arrogance dept.
Say what? I don't know what this tagline is supposed to mean. Does it refer to ICANN or the UN? If this was directed at the UN, they are many things, but arrogant is not one of them. I know the average US citizen has been turned against them by the media portrayal, but this is a bit too much.
Anyways, the idea that an international body handle internation communication is not new, as pointed to by the the ITU already in place.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Can the poster get an amen?
Here are the UN sanctioned domain names: .UN (UN) .BM (boom) .JD (jihad) .TW (third world) .FA (famine) .BH (blue helmet) .WC (war criminals) .OF (oil for food)
OK, let's see. In the last year, we've heard about the UN Oil-for-Palaces program, UN peacekeepers in central Africa running underage prostitutes, UN bureaucrats sexually assaulting junior employees, etc., etc.
Mind you, all is not lost. If the UN does get this role, then the Internet as we know it will become a shambolic mess, and the US will just have to invent something else.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Let's take away control of the Internet from the corrupt, unaccountable, undemocratic, hopelessly bureaucratic organization that controls it today so we can make sure it's controlled by ...
Oh, you said the UN?
Nevermind.
If they want to stall or reverse the progress that has been made then by all means turn over control the UN so all the UN member can play politics with policies. The UN doesn't exactly have great track record and the last think we need is the worlds largest bureaucracy in control.
I don't want the UN deciding what is and isn't spam...at least the first amendment is valid in the US, an international body may decide that "hate speech" is illegal and therefore decide to censor certain websites like countries do now. I would prefer as little world government interference with the internet as possible.
http://chrono.posterous.com/
Is anyone following the investigation of the UN's Oil for Food program and the honest millions that Kofi's son made off the suffering of iraqis? (this is not a defense of the bush administration, just an attack on Kofi Annan's crooked kid.)
I predict your post will be modded up and down like crazy and will eventually end up -1 Troll.
/. veers more left than Pravda, and we all know the left hate George Bush, and therefore love anything that he's ever criticized.
To all the Americans bashing the UN, how about you pay your fees before you start attacking an institution that you yourselves were instrumental in creating.
Now thats out of the way, I too believe that ICANN should either give over its responsiblities to an Independant International Body, or in itself become that body. Notice I said Independant, this means not beholden to one organisation/nation or another, not the UN, not the US or any other group.
*cue sarcasm*
Let's replace a quasi-governmental body have trouble reacting to the growth of the internet due to it being formed during the internet's infancy with another quasi-governmental body formed in the aftermath of WW2. YA, That'll work. *end sarcasm*
Seriously, the UM works well in certain areas (specifically oversight of election and aid program), but is NOT a good foundation for any type of Hegemony. Hegemony meaning any body that makes rules for the entire planet with power to enforce them over local or national preference.
Point being UN is not a good foundation as it was designed to prevent a nuclear WW3 as a treaty organization. I'm not saying it's bad but it's a very silly fit we looked at properly
The United Nations does not even represent the interests of all the people on Earth. Even if we ignoring the masses under totalitarian governments, corrupt governments, un-representative governments, ignoring all of them, we are still left with nations that arn't even allowed to participate fully in the United Nations. Two very significant countries comes to mind - the Republic of China on Taiwan, and Isreal.
Regards,
Spock_NPA
First off, let's be realistic: the current US Congress wouldn't let the UN run the internet. After all, our own Al Gore invented it... But seriously, there's a lot of mistrust of the UN, much of it for good reasons.
The lack of accountability and responsibility that led to the Oil-for-Food scandal is hardly encouraging. Can we really expect the UN to be more responsive to internet users' needs than ICANN, as bad as ICANN is?
There are also some really twisted jokes to be made about how effective the UN would be in fighting child porn, considering the actions of some of its employees and peacekeepers in the Congo.
In essence, we're talking about replacing a large, corrupt bureaucracy with an even larger corrupt bureaucracy. Doesn't sound good, does it? I'd much rather see ICANN's functions assumed by a diverse group of private companies, with oversight from democratically-elected governments. In particular, the Chinese government and other repressive regimes can stay the hell away from internet regulation. Even good companies can be pressured into making bad decisions when China gets involved.
I *KNOW* I've just opened the flood gates of Bush jokes, DMCA rants, and PATRIOT Act tirades, but please, before you post, think about whether you're (1) on-topic (this is about the UN replacing ICANN), and (2) saying something new that hasn't been said in the numerous slashdot stories on the DMCA, etc. I'm all for a good joke, but please let it be something more original than "Bush is really stupid, and Americans are fat and stupid for voting for him". I live in one of the bluest areas of a very blue state, and I've heard them all.
CNN
I'm reading The Checkbook and the Cruise Missle, in which Arundhati Roy says injustices increase as decision-makers are geographically separated from those affected by the decision. She cites the World Bank in Geneva, and the IMF, the WTO, as examples.
.com, US sites will have to use .co.us like everyone else? That seems reasonable. If they just set up root DNS servers that don't answer requests for .com (or .org, .gov, etc.), those servers will be more convenient to client hosts in their region. Software will get patched to check both authorities, since it's an easy fix, & US sites will register both types of domains to maximize their availability. Then, over an excruciating number of years, while everyone has to support both naming styles, .com & the other 3-letter domains will die out, & the plaintiffs will have their way.
So Third-World countries want power over names? And they think they can accomplish that by moving the naming committee to UN Headquarters in New York? The UN didn't work for poor people in Iraq, or Palestine. Why will it work in the case of Internet names?
This is the first case I know of where software standards have reached the level of world politics. (It's different from software patents in Europe.) I don't think they ever belong there. Software standards have developed reasonably well under Darwinian conditions: it may take decades, but eventually everyone switches to open standards because there's an advantage to being able to communicate. E.g., everyone uses TCP/IP now, not IPX or any other proprietary network protocol. I know, I know, we're still fighting this battle daily, but you can see the positive trend, & it's happening without any legislation or government enforcement.
What I'm getting at is Third World countries should just set up their own root DNS servers. Whatever it is they want -- get rid of the 3-letter root domains? So instead of
I'm gonna sound like a Wired columnist, but here goes: The Internet is suggesting new kinds of economics, government, maybe religion.... We should stick with what works, instead of imposing traditional kinds of governance onto the Internet.
I'm well aware of the recent UN bashing by the United State's administration, but to be honest, does anyone take it seriously apart from them? I don't get you people.
Probably it's a better idea to trust a huge international body, which already manages a lot of aspects of various fields than the current quasi corporate owned system.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
- Any one can register any domain, trademarks not withstanding. Along with this, if I get there before you have a trademark, you lose.
- Nothing is censored, period. Once I have a domain, I can do whatever I damn well please with it. If I want to put up a page which repeats "Kill the President, heil Hitler!" a thousand times, with images of the Goatse guy interspersed, no one is allowed to force me to take it down. Local laws may mean you get arrested for it, but the domain registry doesn't get involved.
Granted, at the moment, ICANN doesn't really fit this either, so I don't mind them losing it, just as long as the people who get it are better. And, somehow, I don't see the UN as being better. Maybe we should give the whole thing to Jamaica, I've never seen them get up in arms about "indecancy".Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Here's the deal-yo.
First: Spell Check is your friend.
It's "Bureaucracy", NOT however the fuck you spelled it above.
Also, there has never been any genocide in "ruanda", however the genocide in "Rawanda" is very well documented. I'd like to add that the USA didn't do anything during the Rawandan Genocide either.
Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
if you pull your head out long enough to figure out that ... oops... you don't have to hand it over to the US. They invented it all to begin with.
The UN probably isnt the best place to take over from ICANN, i cant think of a decent reason why they should to be perfectly honest, but lets not get caught up in merely bashing the UN.
:)
Sure its had its problems, and no political organisation is ever whiter then white, regardless of which country or countries its from.
Politicans in general are sleazy, and often prone to corruption - heck look at the US administration if you require proof.
The scale in which big buisness has bought power in America alone is frightening, and i dont believe for a second its restricted to there alone - there are bound to be other countries under the thumbs of buisnesses.
Personally i would like a not-for-profit organisation to be set up, which did not rely overly on any one country and which had absolute transparancy in its accounts and can show that it is trustworthy to the public of the world, not just to any one country.
Of course its never going to happen but theres nothing wrong in hoping is there?
I, for one, welcome our new UNconcerned overlords.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Will ICANN replace the UN?
I know the general opinion of the UN is pretty low here, ever since the UN refused to go along with American bullying in Iraq.
But putting that aside for a moment, it is hard to imagine anybody doing worse than ICANN. At least the UN won't get pushed around by corporate interestes.
Um, Oil-for-Food, forced prostitution rings in the Balkans, rape in the Congo, Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues, thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year, inaction in Sudan, Syria on the human rights committee... Should I continue?
Well, if the UN can manage CEB [unsystem.org], CTBTO [ctbto.org], ECA [uneca.org], ECE [unece.org], ECLAC [eclac.org], ESCAP [unescap.org], ESCWA [escwa.org.lb], FAO [fao.org], UNCTAD [unctad-undp.org], HLCM [unsystem.org], MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD [unsystem.org], IANWGE [unsystem.org], IAPSO [iapso.org], and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)
UN's record isn't that great IMHO
Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?
How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do and what real and meaningful good they actually have accomplished? It is up to the UN and its defenders to prove they are doing some good, not the other way around.
What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.
Brian EllenbergerThe Oil for Food program was overseen by the security council. The security council has five permanent members: France, Great Britain, China, Russia, and The United States. The security council bears ultimate responsbility for any scandal connected with Oil for Food; Kofi Annan, and the rest of the U.N, had next to nothing to do with it.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Another US v/s Rest of the World flamebait thread.
Mmmm.. Donuts
This may not fit in well with the general slashdot crowd's better-than-thou attitude with regard to anything besides the USA, but I think that would actually be a good idea, basically. The Internet is a crucial piece of infrastructure for the *entire* world, and it should be made sure that noone (neither person nor organization nor country) has too much control/influence over it. Transferring control of the steering groups to an international not-for-profit organization (whichever one in particular) is the only way to ensure that, and given the important of the Internet in economic and political terms, I think the UN is actually a good choice since it'd make sure that these goals are actually achieved. A mere international organization that's not part of any larger body would likely to be taken over in some way pretty soon. That being said, I think the FUD spread in many other comments about the UN is just that - FUD. Handle with care, don't feed the trolls, and, most importantly, don't mod them up.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
The UN sucks. Period. They can't even keep track of their own scams (hint hint- Oil for Food, Kofi Annan not being able to keep track of his son, etc.), let alone internet. What would they know about internet and cyber crimes? Some of them must be n00bs to internet computing and the like.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
You don't have to "hand it over" to the USA. They bloody *invented* it.
I guess the mods only get their news from CBS...
1. Those who know the UN is a useless, corrupt body
2. Idiots
The UN is going the way of the League of Nations, nobody (particularly the USA) listens to them, their bureaucracy has bloated any potential for use they might have had.
Handing anything over to the UN is just asking it to be poorly managed by more people than could ever be needed to manage a particular task, and then to be delegated over repeatedly, until all sides are happy. Which, obviously will never happen and 1 side will just start ignoring them and doing what they like, which is an alarming trend as of late.
As is the case in Iraq and Sudan as of late, the nations that helped found the UN based on the League of Nations lack of authority, don't even listen to the UN, why put anything else under the jurisdiction of a useless entity?
Their only goal seems to be expand its bloat and watch and comment on the atrocities it's supposed to prevent, I for one am sick of international organizations that don't even stand up for themselves when they are trampled over again, and again.
The UN will go the way of the League of Nations, even though we all know it already has. Peacekeepers hiring prostitutes in Congo, people in Sudan starving to death, unchecked war in Iraq, and soon I'm sure war in another country with brown people in it, and hopefully some natural resources, yeehaw!
[cx]
DNS Error, bitch. Goatse.un my ASS. Probably his ass, actually.
No
FTFA: A U.N.-sponsored panel aims to . . . propose solutions to problems such as cyber crime and email spam . .
So, they're saying that ICANN somehow failed to stop SPAM and cybercrime?? And they're going to do what, exactly, differently?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Dear U.N.,
No.
Signed,
- Everyone
Seriously, though, the U.N.? I'm all for internationalization, and I believe working with the global community is a very good idea, especially in the long run, but the U.N.? No. Maybe someone who has their act together. But not the U.N. As much as I get angry with my own government, at least I can rest easy at night knowing we don't pay any attention to the U.N. at all.
United Nations: 9/10 as an idea, 2/10 in implementation.
There's a fine line here. The ITU does some wonderful things by setting standards so that different phone systems can connect to each other. They DO NOT regulate or control the content of the conversations that go over the phone systems because the several sovereign states of the world have not given ITU regulatory or police authority over telephones.
Similarly, under an ITU-like UN structure, the UN Internet task group may do fun things that disturb ARIN, Internic et al, but they will have no influence whatsoever over spam, because that is content, not infrastructure. Trying to de-spam the Internet with a UN body is like trying to do spam filtering at layer 2...
Admittedly, a greater international influence at W3C would make dealing with double-byte languages easier in the future.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
I think that is largely the american military hardware companies that are sent in to make money off the negative situation... turning it into a more negative situation...
What is the relevance of any of these organizations to the Internet and orginization and management of Domain Names? I think it is a field they should stay away from since they should be more concerned with world politics at this point. Besides, there is no problem with ICANN as of now, its perfectly functional! So why change ownership?
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
I find layer 1 spam response works best, speaking of which, where is my etherkiller?
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
What the hell are you talking about? Not only does your reply betray your ignorance of the facts, but it doesn't explain this man: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001492.htm
I agree there's an international problem with spam, but what has that got todo with the management of network names and numbers (apart from the obvious!)? Surely it'd come down to extending the mail transport protocols. As for the management of network names and numbers... you'd of thought that no body would be necessary, in this day and age you'd of thought it'd be completely automated! less the disputes... I mean what do they do?. Now for handing out numbers I can see the requirement for a body of soem sort.
ICANN is useless - if you get a domain name stolen or some crooked registrar like DomainMonkeys/TotalNIC locks your domain name, then ICANN are no help unless you pay them $7000 to "asses the situation" (i.e. that 7k does not guarantee your domain back).
If ICANN can't remove a crooked registrar's accreditation or get back stolen domains for you, what use are they?
As a charitable organisation, they seem pretty good at taking your money for doing nothing....
#include <sig.h>
You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
and if Northeast Western Chuckolia doesn't want to get online under those circumstances, where data and speech is free and netizens can take care of weasels their own way, fsck 'em. in that case, they aren't ready for the truth.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Could we just get rid of the centralized domain name system? Could we get rid of domain names all-together? Perhaps a search function like Google could make these names obsolete, and we can avoid the politics.
My technical knowledge is littile, so I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.
"eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" Wendell
That may be, but we can still lead our way out of a wet paper bag. I think Bush might even be able to lead us out of a dry paper bag. So there!
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
He did provide information about those organizations, or are you afraid of hyperlinks? The UN doesn't have much military power because it depends on each country to allocate the resources for each mission. The USA, having such a large military force (that often uses in a para-UN way), shouldn't be complaining about the UN lacking military resources. Not to mention it's sad seeing the US complaining about the UN favouring Saddam, when the US itself helped him so much. Who gave him WMDs to use against Iran?
http://www.pre-nominet.com/ reckons domains ordered before nominet (c 1996) are going to be taken back and rented to them.
>How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do
l e_on_4/42 16853.stm
You see, there are these magical things called "links". How about you learn the spell for following them?
> Rwanda
Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.
> money launderer for Saddam.
As if we've done any better:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fi
BTW, do you know what body of the UN had the authority to block contracts under OFF? It was the Security Council, and it only took one member to act.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
The way ICANN has been screwing with the value we hand them daily, someone could replace them with a tribe of chimps with a dartboard and we'd usually be better off.
--
make install -not war
I am all for putting the control of the internet in the hands of an international body but I'm not sure I would entrust it to the UN. Ultimately, any power given to the UN is at the hands of the security council, on which China has a permanent seat. China has vetoed security council attempts to condemn human rights abuses, because the Chinese government does not believe in human rights. This is the same Chinese government that does not believe in any freedom of speech (see: great firewall of China). Now, it is true that the veto power of security council members is only a negative power (one hand cannot force anything through, but one hand can stop anything), but I still cannot accept the idea in giving any sort of control over the internet to China.
I don't think that the United States should be entrusted with such power either (see: DoJ, Ashcroft's abuses, MPAA), but I am loathe to consider the alternative.
even the dumbest /.'er knows that it is not in our best interest to have free speech (email) regulated by an UNelected ivory tower group such as the UN.
I think you'll find Kofi Annan was leading the Oil for Food program, many wanted his resignation when it came out, if he had nothing to do with it, why would this be?
Kofi is the most useless man the UN has ever had. And that's not saying much.
Am waiting for china to step up the the plate and setup a world government.
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
Almost anytime that you get a group of people together you will have politics and disagreements. Whether you label the group ICANN, ITU, UN, or the local PTA matters little in this respect.
Frankly, ICANN has been hijacked by a bunch of corporate political players. ITU has also had its problems but (as far as I can tell) they haven't been obviously corrupt, and they do have a record of successfully implementating technical solutions worldwide over the last 140 years - even between countries that don't like each other very much. I'd vote for the ITU over ICANN any day of the week.
Well said!
Add to the list WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
ICANN doesn't do a bad enough job - so let's hand control over to a group of bickering diplomats dominated by five allies with different interests who each have the power to veto anything that they feel like. How is that a good idea? Anyone who thinks that giving the UN control over ANYTHING, in particular any form of commerce, is a fool at best.
The UN is at present the most capable international forum. One has to realized that it is multifaceted organization that cannot be evaluated in vague generalizations. Issues such as its response time have been the result of unwillinginess of Security Council nations to act outside of their myoptic foriegn agendas. Such failures cannot condemn a potentially well-run and highly effecient organization. An organization that would logically operate outside of the Security Council's jurisdiction.
Taking domain issues to an international level is a necessary step for the growth of the internet. A semi-democratically/semi-corporately controlled US based corporation is not legit means of regulating and debating international issues.
I am not so foolish to believe that the UN is perfect for the role. But it has a far greater potential of being a democratic organization than ICANN.
Thank you for your time,
Fenwick McKelvey
We all know how good they have handled the Isreal/Palistine , Rawanda, Syrian genocide, Saddam, Oil for food, etc. The UN has a big "For Sale" sign out in front.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
It's ours. We built it. So everybody else leaches off it. There's no reason it should go out of the hands of the US. It's our. We own it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I don't want the UN deciding what is and isn't spam...at least the first amendment is valid in the US, an international body may decide that "hate speech" is illegal and therefore decide to censor certain websites like countries do now. I would prefer as little world government interference with the internet as possible.
While I'd like some objective arguments about moving against ICANN you arguments hold up almost as well as a bag of moist sewage.
1st ammendment: Well, its an ammendment, not a supernatural right set in stone, more of an afterthought/clarification. Does it ensure free speech (fire theater argument etc) hell no! It ensures you can say what you want after expecting someone can sueue you (if its personal) or if its against a corporation or the government you're up for a prison sentence if you cannot pay the legal fees to support your supposed freedom of speech. Perhaps some DMCA legislation could lead up to further ammendments of this ammendment. There is a whole load of "freedom of speech" illegal in the USA which is legal in other countries. Choosing which is 'correct' is hard indeed there is no common standard. Would the US would gain if it was given laxer freedoms? - probably. At the moment it has some of _the_ tightest copyright/DMCA-type and free speech restriction legislation in the world. The UN tends to go for the legislation weakest in enforcability rather than the strongest, hence its ineffectiveness at times of hard-judgement but also hence its acceptance amongst almost all world nations (prefer a despot you know or one you don't?).
But then again media networks and money-grubbing corporates would be quick to sponsor and advertise scorn on the idea lest profits be taken away from them and consumers spared anti-competitive businesses. So people are anti-UN. Makes sense really.
I mistyped I should have said Sudan's genocide, not Syria. However Syria has it's own problems. :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
I agree that the UN is the wrong body for this, because the UN is an international political body, and control over any essential element of the Internet on a global scale should be as far removed from political control as possible.
No, no, no, and Hell No!
After reading their web pages:
CEB: I still have no idea what they do. I am guessing this is where high level coordination occurs.
CTBTO: Looks good. I want to see a comprehensive nuclear test ban too, but I am sure the Bush supporters won't like it.
ECA, ECE, ESCAP, ECLAC, ESCWA: These are regional commissions for economic issues regarding regions.
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization
UNCTAD, IACSD: Sustainability of human development.
HLCM, HLCP: coordination organizations.
IANWGE: Work on promoting gender equality
IAPSO: Procurement for other UN offices.
Note that many of these are support organizations for those who go out and do the real work. Others work on solving economic and social problems.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?
Maybe this argument has meaning in international-relations circles, but here on slashdot we don't know what the hell you're talking about. Listing off alphabet soup organazations that no one has heard of before, then challenging people to list scandals involving them is meaningless. I think I've heard of a sum total of two UN organizations. WHO (world health organization), and UNICEF (oh and I suppose UNESCO, but only because it was featured in the game Deus Ex)
If you want to make your case that the UN is the right organization to manage internet address space, you have to give examples of shared internation resources that the UN has successfully managed before. By my own admission I'm certainly not expert on UN orgs, but I didn't think there WERE any shared international resources that the UN managed.
AccountKiller
Sure, continue on, but next time be more statistically valid. Picking out incidents from an entity is not valid; I could equally point to a hundred major scandals in the US from the past decade. A more fair method is to pick organizations in a deterministic fashion (i.e., no hunt-and-peck), and then look at their records.
But, hey, for the heck of it, lets look at your list (feel free to add more!)
> Oil-for-Food
OFF "leaked" by 2-4 billion$ (the other money was from oil smuggling, which never was under the jurisdiction of OFF). US reconstruction money (largely Iraqi oil profits) leaked by 9B$, when dealing with a smaller total. Net result: UN handled money better.
> forced prostitution rings in the Balkans
Perhaps you're confusing NATO with UN? Italian NATO peacekeepers were accused by the Spanish Secret Service of running a prostitution ring. Also, DynCorp (A private US company) was involved in a prostition-ring there; members even filmed the rape of a young girl.
> rape in the Congo
Yes, of the 11,000 UN troops in the congo, there were 150 allegations of rape against about a dozen troops. This is, percentage-wise, about on par with accusations against US troops by Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. And like we have any right to talk after Abu Ghraib and the recently exposed Guantamo details.
> Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues,
Sexual harassment? That's the worst you can come up with? I think you need to have a talk with Janis Karpinski about that in the US. Or perhaps talk with the >60% of female US soldiers who experienced sexual harassment, and the >30% of female US soldiers who experienced rape or attempted rape by their fellow soldiers, over the course of their military careers. 19% of women at the Air Force Academy were raped during their stay; 81% were too afraid to report the rape, and 42% of those who did experienced retaliation for doing so. I could go on and on, on this front.
> thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year,
*Unpaid Parking Tickets*? Please tell me that I just hallucinated you writing that...
> inaction in Sudan,
Naturally, the US stepped right up to take their place, right? Oh yeah, that's right, we were the leading cause of UN inaction on this front.
> Syria on the human rights committee...
Yes, everyone gets a chance. Like the US is one to speak with Guantanamo, Baghram, Abu Ghraib, Shebargham, and its policy of extrordinary rendition, especially to the very country you just named.
> Should I continue?
Please do. What's next - jay walking?
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Nobody is suggesting giving the UN control over what communication is permissable. The idea is that we have an internal forum manage internet standards in such a way that we can create our own technical solutions to spam.
The UN faithfully delivered all suggested contracts to a commitee manned by 5 standard members of the council, several was marked as financially suspicious but none of these were investigated. The US did however block hundreds of other contracts for what they said was security reasons, the other 4 countries blocked none. This was [b]not[/b] a fault of the UN administration
Furthermore, the money involved in these contracts are dwarfed by both the amount of money mysteriously disappearing from Iraqui oilwells nowadays, and the amount of good old-fashioned smuggling out of Iraq pre-war.
The "genocide" in Yugoslavia is a fairly good example actually, because before NATO/US moved in, people on all sides were killing eachother pretty equally. It was war. However western media somehow(for what reasons? by whose decision?) misrepresented statistics and the whole situation blew up when NATO went in. To add insult to this, they never went in with ground fources to break things up. Europe(Germany? my memory fails me) premature approval of Kosovo didn't help much either. The UN tactic of waiting it out, and not arbitrerarily choosing one side to side with was prudent; and it's only our acute sense of stupidity that keeps us from seeing it.
Lastly, the world is a big place; listing the disasters of the world is not proof the UN is not working. They are not, and never were intended to be world police. They are not perfect, and they don't have a magic wand to remove problems. Problems often seem quite different depending on the perspective, and while I'm sure you're sure your perspective is right, I'm equally sure mine is right.
Oh, and sorry for not providing links, but I don't have them handy; and you're probably just as good at searching as I am :)
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
Does anybody still remember the Oil for Food debacle? Or should we let those idiots run the Internet as well? No, keep the UN out of my Internet! Please!!!
can we a poll for this on the front page please?
So what you're saying, you'd rather have ONE country and its ideals control what is and what is not acceptable in the Internet?
Okay.
May I remind you that while spam is an entirely American invention, it still is a worldwide problem. As such it would probably make sense to fight it globally rather than individually in national levels, which is exactly what is happening and not working right now.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
We'll have an Oil-for-Domain scandal.
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
Details on the conference are available at:
http://slata.stanford.edu/Conference05/
The conference is open to the public. Anyone interested in speaking on this conference (who is qualified, of course), please email me at sbtoeniskoetter ((AT)) usfca.edu . Thanks
Pull the other one!
I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.
The UN could not do anything because the member countries of the Security Council who were generally much closer geographically to Iraq were (rightly as it turned out) afraid of what would happen when Saddam was ousted.
In other news, we can look at the nepotism that goes on wrt Iraq contracts under the Bush Administration (Haliburton anyone?) and see strong parallels to the OFF issues. Therefore the US government must be bad and we should get rid of it? I don't know anyone who reacts this way to the US Gov't except strangely those who are responsible for supporting this type of morally bankrupt government.
The UN has been coming of age in recent years, and this is likely to be the source of a lot of the hard feelings. The WTO which used to be a sounding board for US corporate interests is now becoming more egalitarian with the third world countries standing up to their interests much better than in the past. Similarly, the US cannot just assume that other countries (particularly those in the EU) will simply bow to US economic, trade, and even foreign policy. The UN has become a strong force for Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and this is a direct threat to the global supremacy of the US. This is why there is so much bitterness against it from here.
Sure there is some corruption, but there is corruption in every other burocracy in the world. What is news is that for the first time since WWII, the US is opposed by a community of nations in a variety of ways from trade policy to its international agenda. There is a lot of cooperation too but nobody mentions this.
The UN would do well to take over the duties of the IANA and the ICANN. And again this is because it would give poorer nations more just representation in these policies.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
hey didn't you hear? the US OWNs the internet http://objective.jesussave.us/shutdown.html and we should excercise our place as its owners. on a more serious note, I like the internet as it is. No one OWNs it (at least all of it) there is always a data haven we can hide in. some shady corner. some place where we have the right to place all information we want to place. No one has to read it but at least we cant be shutdown as rebels for hate speech. in the US I will have the right to hate. in other coutrys the ip laws may be loose. whatever it is the internet is a medium, a place for ideas. if we cant place our ideas for all those who wish to read, it is not internet for me.
the culture of corruption is so rampant at the UN that no one nation, even the US, can overcome it. The other members of the security council were happy to block any serious investigation of the program when it was in place; top officals in France and Russia were receiving millions, too. The inevitable result of "one nation, one vote" when many of the nations are corrupt oligarchies or dictatorships is still more corruption. It's like working in a committee when a solid majority of the members are out to actively subvert the process.
Mark Steyn has it right:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?x
No one trusts them enough to actually govern planet Earth so they think we're going to trust them running the Internet???
Oh come on. If you could get off without paying parking tickets, you would, don't lie!
San Francisco Photographers
who has something to say in the un? the nations who pay, mainly usa. so what would be accomplished by moving the power to the un? nothing.
the united nations organisation needs a reform. same rights, same dutys for every country on the planet!
Which are we talking about here, ICANN or the UN?
Hey, I hear there's this guy Kojo looking for a new gig.
Really, let's move this up the food chain a bit and put it more out of touch with folks toiling in the trenches - let's set it up so the Ambassador of the King of the Fly Speck Islands can put his idiot son in charge and start looking for creative ways to finance his chalet in Gstaad.
So his argument is pointless because you're an ignoramus and insist on remaining one?
Rwanda
Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.
Um, you know, the UN did step in in Rwanda. The complaint against them is that they didn't accomplish anything -- if anything, they made matters worse by attracting people to safe-zones that turned out not to be safe.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
money launderer for Saddam
Do you mean THIS Saddam?
It's not "oops, I forgot" or anything like that- it's willful disobedience to *any* kind of traffic logic. I've been to the northeast only a couple times, but I *always* see a diplomatic plate parked in some ridiculous fashion that screws over someone (a couple times that's been me).
Now, I don't know how it's relevant to the UN running this dealybob, granted...
we were the leading cause of UN inaction on this front.
Not to detract from your main premise (don't agree or disagree... haven't yet made up my mind), but how is the US the leading cause of UN inaction in Sudan? France opposed UN sacntions on Sudan and the UN went out of its away to avoid using the "G" word (genocide). The US has been admirable in getting involved with Sudan (although it could probably be doing more) while the UN has not.
Maybe you've forgotten Cheney's pals at Halliburton. And Abu Ghraib. And the permanent residents of Cuba. And...
...
And domestically Lewinski (it's not just republicans!) And USA PATRIOT. And DMCA. And
The UN doesn't have a monopoly on beureaucratic cockups.
...should the world replace the UN? It's clearly not working.
All this about who is better, US or UN is not relevant to the article. The question is who would be better handling domain names and IP address for the world. ICAAN or ITU? I believe ICAAN is doing a fine job. Why fix something that is not broke? ICAAN is not a department of the US Government, but ITU is a department of the UN Government. ICAAN is an internationally incorporated non-profit. If the UN takes over the role of ICAAN you can bet we would be removing domains and domain names from the private business world and putting it in the hands of governments around the world. I do not see how small dictatorships or China running all the domains for there assigned nation could possibly help progress free thought exchange now being used on the Internet. Example: All China IP's will start with 86.10 (Beijing) (using phone codes). Then the China government can stop any domain from its government run/regulated ISP's from allowing any non- China approved country code. What we will have is huge communication blockades. Why is this good ????? Please explain???
In general. Yes, there are types of banned speech in the US. However, there are big name groups opposed to DMCA and other type things. Some of the companies have declined to take certain folks to court for fear of losing their unconstitutional law, as well.
The real thing is to look at who bothers with international hosting.
US folks have to have Euro servers for speech that some company patented ("to promote innovation!"). European political folks (like Nazis, but I'm sure there are others) often reside on stateside servers. If there are big pushes to let the Nazis speak in Europe, I've not heard of them.
Can't forget to mention UNSPSC, the UN controlled standard that manages the taxonomy behind the bar code you see on each can of alphabet soup...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
"The UN and its defenders" don't have to prove anything to YOU because the UN and its constitutent agencies all exist by the will of the nation-states that comprise it, including the United States which wields the greatest institutional, military, and financial power over it (you got a problem with that?). If you happen to disagree with this collective exercise of national sovereignity, go complain to the heads of state of several hundred nations.
DNS was better when it was managed entirely by one guy in his spare time.
True. If by funny you mean the sort of joke that makes you want to throw up... and let's not forget that the CIA under Reagan was the primary organizing force behind the Afghan mujahedin, including certain terrorists of recent renown.
The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic designed to set up the New American Century. Just look at the smearing of the IAEA (and subsequent total failure of the US to do any better). It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place, or how Germany and Japan undermined the League of Nations as a critical part of their imperial manouevres in the 30's.
People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer, former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.
As for bureaucracy, I've worked in many US govt labs and the idea that America is somehow less bureaucratic is another of those jokes that makes you want to hurl. People, turn off your TV, it's lying to you...
When we have a UN that is inept (various massacre/genocide issues) and corrupt (Oil for food) and cannot handle the "mission" that they set out to do. Do we really want to give them more oversight responsibility? 'nough said.
the UN is a useless and corrupt organization for handling anything IMPORTANT.
they have been incapable of handling anything in the last 50 years of solid real decisions.
a global forum is a great idea, now if someone could just do it properly without a bunch of idiotic beauracrats.
And they have recently decided that what is happening in sudan is not genocide [cnn.com].
The problem with the term "genocide," until international law, is that it has an extremely strict definition under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (a treaty from 1951). While the UN committee found that they couldn't strictly, under the treaty, call it genocide under international law, they did point out that serious crimes against humanity were being perpetrated in Darfur. Crimes against humanity are just as prosecutable, and in many cases easier to prove in international courts and tribunals than genocide, with quite similar punishments. The problem is in assuming that the term "genocide" has the same meaning in both international politics and law. It doesn't. International law often makes much more strict determinations of terms, because of how treaties and customary law works. It's not like Sudan is getting off easy in this matter. The Security Council is soon likely to pass (based on the report) a resolution most likely creating a tribunal to prosecute these serious crimes occurring in Darfur. You'll also note that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established less than a year after the crimes there started taking place, and has since delivered convictions in cases.
With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.
Generally, I prefer to get my information from better sources than a blog that repeatedly uses such stellar examples of journalistic writing as the use of the terms "UNocrat," "lefties," "deranged pimply-faced trolls" (a term applied to people who disagree with them!) and "The Queen of the High Priest Vulture Elite" (referencing the UNICEF director). See for yourself! Their only source for their accusation that the UN is not providing sufficient support is an ill-defined "fact sheet" that they don't even corroborate with additional sources, nor tell where this "fact sheet" even came from. I would hope people would do much more research than just assuming that such a vitriolic blog posting is true.
Want Slashdot headlines on your site? Try SlashHead
Basically, the UN wants control so that it can levy taxes on the Internet, and the developing nations are for it because the UN says that it's willing to send the money to help them get online faster.
There would likely be all sorts of messy consequences, starting with censorship in DNS:
France - Nazi memorabilia banned.
China - You can't use the word "Taiwan" in any domain name.
U.S.A. - All web sites of "known terrorist sympathizers" banned.
U.K. - IRA banned.
Russia - Russian dissidents (those words go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly) and Chechen rebel groups banned.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Isn't ambiguity great?
So very off-topic... so very flamebatey. No wonder it's modded insightful.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Wait, never mind. Only 50% offtopic and so very flamebatey.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Would you mind referencing where you obtained these percentages from? Without a reputable reference, it is just smoke.
Don't forget Abu Ghraib. I guess the rape rooms are merely torture rooms now. As for the "those people were punished for their (sic) wrong doings", most of the people put in the prison are there on mere suspicion. Many have been there without having even been charged with anything. It would _almost_ make sense to torture them if they were actually convicted of anything, but they're denied due process.
Now there's mention of torture in Afghanistan now too. Not to mention the "Extraordinary Rendition" where the US farms out torture to countries that are more blase about human rights.
Uh, the fact that there exist mor incompetent buffons in the world in no way alters the fact that the UN is a collection of incompetent buffoons. Or at least ineffective ones.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
If that country is the United States then I'd have to say yes, I'd rather have one country and it's ideals control what is and what is not acceptable. I'd prefer it to the vast majority of other nations willing to step up to the plate to try and I'd prefer it to an attempt by a largely ineffective collection of them all.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Darfur Crisis Causes U.S. To Stumble Over Opposition To International Court" U.S. Stubborn On Sudan
The basic problem is that the US doesn't want to back up the ICC (which the Bush administration opposes). Thankfully the administration is now supporting a security force (they weren't when the majority of the crimes were being committed), and this year is leading the effort to help get peacekeepers there. They're still causing rifts by trying to keep the ICC out of it, though.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Given the way people's politics tend toward at least seeming internal consistency, i'm betting he doesn't really want anyone governing the internet at all. Excellent job knocking down the straw man, though ;).
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Ignorance is no defence.
Or sister, watever the case may be. It was built by US for US. We let the rest of you use it because it so suits us. There is 0 chance of us giving up control of the Internets.
...by ignoring the genocide in the Sudan whilst condemning the US's wholly legal enforcement of the UN's OWN RESOLUTIONS in Iraq.
Given the current level of scandal which plagues the UN, I think maybe-just maybe-it's time to stop trusting them.
FGI yourself next time.
m il itary-rape.html
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2003/march/031103
This isn't the same study that I encountered before (they got a higher % of sexual harassment in this one), but the results are quite similar.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
I told you not to be stupid, you moron!
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
It seems that upwards of 3/4 of posts to this story are about how the [un | icann | us govt] is/are hopelessly corrupt. Rather than bemoaning the frankly obvious (big organizations are, as the rule, corrupt and inefficient), we should find a way to fix the problem.
In my opinion, the (at least partial) solution is a flat "no more than 2 or 3 terms of 2-4 years each for any political office." The corruption (que Tron 2.0) is the result of entrenched bureaucrats and politicians defending their turf and infighting. The key operating word there was entrenched. If one is only there for (at the most) 12 years or so, they'll hopefully be either not corrupt to begin with or not there long enough to do the damage that our 'career politicians' in the USA have done.
Think about it: In the US, politicians are beholden to suck every corporate and lobbyist dick pointed their way to get money to get reelected. If they know that there will be no more than 1 or 2 reelection campaigns, they might be more inclined to represent the people.
Part of the reason that I say it should be a flat "no questions askable" limit is that politicians seem to be like internet forum trolls: They get off flaunting overly complex rulesets as much as anything else.
The head of the UN human rights commission in the near past was Sudan. Meanwhile, Sudan is waging an ethnic war in its Darfur region against christian and animist peoples.
Basically, the US voted against Sudan to be nominated. Europe abstained and the 3rd world voted for Sudan.
Meanwhile, Syria can occupy Lebanon for years and nobody has a protest or complains about it. Yep, Lebanon was a christian country up-to the 1940s when it basically got immigration cleansed.
You know its all about control. And third world dictators need not be in control of DNS. They want it bad but sorry.
Then there is Rwanda and Congo but I wont get into to that...
Not only was Koffi largely responsible, his son, Kojo Annan, confessed to being involved in the negotiation of the deals.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Hmmm... as do yours...
Everybody commits attrocities. However there is an increasing trend for UN troops and the corporations that act as support mechanisms for these troops to perform attrocities in hostile situations that are comparable to the situation that encouraged joe public to support such gross action in the first place.
Unfortunately for internation opinion of the US; most of the world associates UN actions with the US... they do afterall provide a large number of the troops to these 'hotspots'. And often there appears to be some tangible conspiracy theory behind such actions.
The moral really should be similar to that of the failed League of Nations... keep out of everybodies business... unless its your business. In which case ask nicely that they stop.
Firstly, I don't want to increase my knowledge of the facts, ignorance is bliss. Secondly... was I supposed to explain something?
Also your double negative reads poorly; I would have written similar to: "Your reply betrays your ignorance of the facts and fails to explain..."
I think my point is that the UN shouldn't be responsible for stopping cyber-crime...
Wow, you might have a point. That's the exact same thing I hear from soldiers that are returning from Iraq. There's actually a lot of positive news, but the netwroks don't care about reporting it.
At least we know the corruption will stop
Who thinks this stuff up, the gag writers for Leno ? I can't wait to hear the top 10 list of reasons why the UN should/shouldn't replace ICANN.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Why did the UN feel the need to use Sudan as a political tool to force the US to accept the ICC?
Just be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
It worked on Saddam :-)
I don't think they gave him anything that wouldn't have been accepted as just peachy during the first two world wars or even during the Korean or Vietnam wars. WMD is a modern buzzword used by the UN and the Bush administration. Some of the US's larger munitions are probably 10x more effective on the battle field than any of the "WMD" that Saddam ever had. The only true WMD are bombs of the nuclear variety. Chemical and biological weapons are horrible things, but politicians have lumped them in with nukes so they can convince people that anyone with "WMD" has the power to obliterate cities when they certainly do not.
You're right and the US isn't worthy of being in the UN and should just get out.
He who owns the DNS server ultimately decides what goes on it.
I think thats how it happened at the beginning right...
If some wacko ISP decides that, in his DNS server, microsoft.com should point to 66.35.250.150 and slashdot.com to 216.234.246.150 they should be free to do so...
Now, others ISPs would be free not to forward any DNS request to wacko ISP, and I guess not many people would want to do business with wacko ISP...
So off course most ISP would get together to decide on how they were going to manage the system.
ISPs ultimately have to behave so as to make most of their customers (businesses or individuals) happy.
Off course, you could fear that the most important customers (eg big businesses) and ISPs (eg AOL) would crush the smaller players (eg individuals and local ISPs) but theres already government regulations to fight that...
The consensual anarchy thing might make things a bit more difficults (ie: names might point to different address when connected to different ISPs) but thats a price I'm willing to pay not to feel so dependant of an organization (ICANN) that doesnt _seem_ to have any legitimacy. (it may have some, but I just dont see it).
I agree lets put the 419 scammers in charge of ICANN.
They cannot even run an oil for food program without being bribed.
Spammers will bribe the UN to look the other way as they steal domain names, and continue to Spam despite anti-Spam laws.
This makes as much sense as putting Boss Hogg in charge of Social Security reform, and then hope he doesn't take money out of accounts.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
So what you're realling saying is that you object to the ideals of the U.S. Constitution being considered universal rights. How dare one of the most liberal countries, in a representative body composed mostly of dictatorships and banana republics, not want to turn over control of part of the Internet to that body where it'll only be abused?
My God, people in Africa might actually start thinking that a trial by jury is a human right not luxury of the state and people in Europe might start thinking that they actually do have a right to speak their minds without being attacked by the politically correct police.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.
And they didn't stop the tsunami disaster - that should have been preemtively prevented like America preemted Iraq using WMDs. And of course they should have moved in right away when GWB got reelected.
But tell me, wtf does that have to do with the bloody governmence of the internet?
Americans also invented the internet too...
No.
That's the short reply. Long version: the UN, as evidenced by the oil-for-food scandal and their attempts to impose a tax on the U.S., is a corrupt organization of politicos bent on controlling everything - not unlike the American government, really.
The trouble is, the UN wants to make everything a bureaucratic struggle, such as in Darfur, and that bureaucracy would strangle the organization of the Internet.
More often than not, decentralization works better than centralization -- smaller businesses tend not to abuse their customers as much as big businesses do, smaller governments tend not to abuse their people as much as bigger governments do, and so on. It's a matter of accountability - like with the problem of increasing numbers of managers over one's head back at the office, increasing the number of "official" overseers only bogs down efficiency. Let the customers of an organization or individual be the real overseers (as is the case currently w/ ICANN) - this is a decentralizing move.
Hence, in the name of decentralization, in the name of not being tied up in corruption (at least as much of it as the UN clearly is), in the name of efficiency -- I would argue that leaving ICANN in its current position is better than putting it under the wing of the UN.
(Note to knee-jerk UN defenders: the UN has its place as a means of mediating conflicts between nations and smoothing things over; as a forum for foreign relations. But we should all be worried when it starts interfering with the sovereignty of any nation, whether that nation is ours or not.)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Has ICANN?
-- . . ramblin' . . .
When you mean nobody is listening to the U.N. you mean, nobody is listenning to each other.
Its not countries not listening to the UN, its member countries not listenning other member countries.
Now, the fact that member countries have let the bureaucrats take over is another problem that can be fixed.
The UN is not a distinct entity, like a country, or a corporation. Its whatever his member choose it to be. (And they may not have chosen very well...)
Its easy to point the finger at the UN (or at the WTO) but you should remember that those are setup and funded by members countries...
Its just like shareholders blaming the corporation when they should be responsible for what the corporation is doing.
-- me
The anemic growth of the Internet in the last 10 years demands the intervention of a multinational government.
t
Now hang on a minute, I'm pretty sure that OSI (and ASN.1, another fucking nightmare) was pretty much caused by the French.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Many factions of the UN are not considered allied in any place I've worked (government 3 letter agencies) - which did seem odd at first. (Not anymore though)
They are considered as just another valid target on the list, no matter how many acronyms they stick their fingers into. Parts of the beast are most definitely corrupt and frequently violent. Don't take my word for it though - google 'corruption within the united nations'
Their record is neither clean, or pleasent. I give it the same level of respect I have for amnesty international (None at all). Fabrication and lies.
Did ICANN?
This hardly seems a relevent argument in the context of the proposal.
Most of what the UN does is utilitarian stuff, like ITU creating standards or the WHO stomping on disease outbreaks. It all ticks along quietly because it's a long way from the politicians.
On the other hand most of the things the UN gets criticism for are either clearly outside it's power (how could the UN, which has no armed forces, have prevented genocide in Rwanda? Sent in some clerks to threaten everyone with really bad paper cuts?), or political schemes which were never supposed to work (eg oil for food, which was a propoganda tool for the western nations who set up the sanctions on Iraq, and so was immune to any kind of oversight, audit or normal management until it's propoganda use was over, it's supprising it wasn't a lot more corrupt than it was).
Like the EU, one of the main purposes of the UN is to be a front behind which governments can do things they can't be seen to do directly. The upside is that it's existance for that purpose means that some useful stuff gets done too.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
first of all, ICANN is an 'internationally organized, non-profit corporation', not entirely one nation.
May I remind you the Internet is an entirely American invention and if you think the US wouldn't get just as much push and shove over the internet via the U.N. you'd be dead wrong.
Granted we may need something new/different other than ICANN, but in the end I doubt much will change.
Countries are always technically late because of the budget year differences. The UN Secretariat budget is chronically late, but don't confuse that with the rest of the agencies such as the ITU or WHO. Also, if you don't pay your dues for 2 years you lose your voting rights, which is partly why the US paid up in spite of douchebags like Jesse Helms whose rhetoric much of America buys into. The veto issue is not as simple as it sounds, because most resolutions don't even get to that stage, just like bills don't all get to the floor of the House or Senate to be filibustered in the first place.
Technically, the UN does not manage the CTBTO, ignoring the fact that the CTBTO does not exist at this point in time. If you look closely, its name is the "CTBTO Prepartory Commission" and it is managed by the "CTBT Prepatory Commission", (PrepCom). The technical affairs are overseen by Working Group B (WGB), which reports to the PrepCom. The PrepCom is composed of all the signatories of the CTBT. When the treaty enters into force, which has not happened, the CTBTO will be working for the States Parties and not the UN. The "CTBTO" does take advantage of the UN HR system. Let me say it takes a lot of effort on the part of the states parties to keep it operational. The international data center was developed by the United States along with a select group of non-US scientists. Development of the IDC was transitioned to the Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS), which is staffed by states parties. The CTBTO is a bit unique in that the States parties specifically created the organization to have the minimal bureaucracy possible and a high technical aptitude. The budget for the PTS is closely monitored by WGB and the PrepCom. Do you have any idea how UN/International organizations are staffed, particularly at the senior level? Let me tell how it works. The senior management grades are P1 through P5, with P5 being higher than a P1. So, lets say an organization has 4 P5 positions. Those P5 positions are partitioned by region. If there is a German in a P5 slot, it will almost be impossible for another European to get another P5 position no matter how qualified they are. My point is that putting something in the UN does not solve problems. Putting a high-profile function like managing the Internet into an international body would be one the most complex treaties ever negotiated.
The UN should definitely be placed in a can.
...with iCann of course.
Who is ICANN accountable to?
.COMmerce, who is accountable to the US congress.
Interesting question. In theory the NTIA/Department of
In practice, the intellectual property lobby of large multinational (but mostlky US 3 letter name) corporations. I realise I sound a bit starkers saying this but if you don't believe me ask the only honest man (and geek) to ever (briefly) serve on the ICANN board, Karl Audbach.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Everybody commits attrocities.
Jesus fuck, if that's how you lead off, I'd like a bit of assurance that you don't live within two hundred miles of me. Fuck, what's your attrocity---making cockpuppets from the neighbors' dogs?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"May I remind you that while spam is an entirely American invention" So is the Internet.
You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.
How on earth can you compare "small positive stories" to the bloodbath in Rwanda?
Why would the US relinquish power over something and simply give it away to the UN?
As it sits, the US has a large say in the to-do of the Internet infrastructural stuff (if it is merely through a board of foot draggers). Why would anyone want to give another nation more power while surrendering its own power?
The US is the most Internet-centric country in the world. It makes business sense for the Internet's core functions to be controlled by us: we made it, we do more on it, and its in our best interest to do so.
Why would we care what Uganda or S. Somoa (or wherever) says on the matter? Let them get clean water first.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
GENOCIDE IN RWANDA? Good gracious! When was the last time an organization had to stop GENOCIDE IN RWANDA to prove that they can stop SPAM? I believe Yahoo! didn't stop GENOCIDE IN RWANDA but they were still allowed to work on anti-spam technology. I think they were partly successful as well (but we wouldn't notice it, but that's the point). Quite amazing for Yahoo, if you ask me, considering they didn't stop GENOCIDE IN RWANDA.
For an idea of what the UN did in the recent tsunami disaster (what they always do -- fly a bunch of drones in first class, to lounge around hotels and hold meeting congratulating themselves on their importance) check out http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/
I guess having taken care of his son Kojo, Kofi Annan needs to have a cash cow for his grandchildren.
The UN. The world's longest running 419 scam.
Just because the UN is less incompetent doesnt mean they are competent enough to run it.
fix it by making the UN bigger.
Sure. Right. More of the hair o' the dog that bit ya.
Can't we go back to decentralization? We have the technology now.
Ah, perhaps with the UN running this, they can move the new ITU-ICANN division to some US government funded building on US soil, paid for by US taxes.
Yeah, just what we need - one more thing the UN gets for free from the US.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
And for the matter of...
ICANN has done stopped all these things? (I didn't even know UN has been laundering Saddams money thou...)
Someone mod this fucker down. I wanted to answer.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Fuck the UN and all the whiney countries...
You want to control the internet? You should have invented it HAHA BITCHES, YOU DIDN'T CUZ YOU SUCK ASS...
Too bad about that... Fuck ya though, our ball our rules. So, I suggest if you want to control anything, you pull your collective heads out of your poor, fat, smelly, unbathed, unshaved, eurotrash welfare-state loving socialist asses and actually fuckin' do something. For those of you who take offense to this, let me quote Dennis Leary on the subject of American Superiority: "We're just fuckin' better than you, too bad. You want a fuckin' reason? Two Words: Nuclear-Fuckin' Weapons, now shut up" I'll admit, we are cocky and arrogant... You know why? Cuz, we are the YOUNGEST COUNTRY... but we still OWNED YOUR ASSES! In WW1, in WW2, and, if push comes to shove, in WW3... Who's the last superpower? Yeah, that's right the United Fuckin' States -- you bitches...
Pack that in your tree-huggin, butt-pluggin' left-leaning stalin-loving pipe and smoke it!
Fox News. The world's longest running joke.
The UN does not have the authority to take control of anything. The hardware simply isn't theirs to begin with. Why should people not paying for the technology get to decide how it is used? Companies that control the net will naturally do what is best for their customers. ICANN provides some order and oversight, but why would anyone go though the effort to turn their responsibilites over to the ITU?
People keep mentioning the good stuff the ITU "does." They don't really do that much. It's not as if they didn't exist we wouldn't be able to call other countries. Companies will make it possible to communicate globally because they can make tons of money doing it. And if one company has an expensive proprietary system that won't let you call China there will be another company that will come along and offer the same service with calls to China for less forcing the first company to do the same only slightly cheaper/better. It's called capitalism, it works, companies and countries that use it make money, those that don't don't.
So perhaps the worst thing we could do is turn over what ICANN does to a body that has such sterling members as North Korea, Iran, etc, and whose agenda is about as straight forward as an acid trip. The UN can't get anything done, so why does anyone think they could keep up with something as fast paced and dynamic as the largest communication system ever? I have no great love for ICANN but the UN... I am surprised anyone would take this idea seriously (not to be a troll but I am really suprised)
...prefer as little USA government interference with the internet as possible. RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, what else?
I'd rather have the UN do it, than some country run by corporations.
When people start talking about the UN taking over something, they always knock the job that the US is doing. Or they bring up the fact that the US shouldn't be in charge, it should be an international thing.
The UN wouldn't exist without the leadership of the United States of America. We founded the organization.
Most of the things that people say "should be governed by an international body" were things that no international body ever tried to take responsibility for. Only after the US or an American entity fosters a project through to maturity do the "international bodies" want to step in. Why not? If I thought that people would just hand me that kind of power, I'd complain to the news outlets too.
Members of the UN have zero power in their own countries. Rarely to UN members outside of the United States make a comparible contribution to a UN effort. The US may pay it's dues late, but they are always the first to commit troops, supplies, transportation, and political clout.
What has the UN accomplished without major US involvement?
On topic...
I don't think that it's a good idea to place any such power inside any governmental or pseudo-governmental body - international or national. If an international commission is what is needed, then lobby for the appointment international members to the ICANN board. If ICANN isn't doing the job correctly, then stop complaining and work towards building a better ICANN and make the world better through competition.
The problem with ICANN is that it's non-representative and unresponsive to end users. It's bad enough this way that it really SHOULD be replaced. The only problem is, the UN is the same way. So what kind of improvement could we reasonably expect?
I know, they're making nice promises. Haven't you ever heard a politician before. Don't believe it without checking, and then check again. Pretend that they are used car salesmen when you listen to them.
OTOH, they are certainly right that ICANN is subject to political manipulation. But so is the UN.
I wish that I trusted ICANN enough to defend them, but I don't. They sell out for any large corp that wants them to. Also for politicians. And they STILL haven't had the election. (I know, the board voted that they didn't have to live up to their charter.)
Possibly the UN wouldn't be any worse.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
there is no text here.
Great idea! Oil for Food, Sex for Food, Sex for IP numbers.
Seriously, even though the complaint that ICANN is too US-centric is justified, turning anything over to the UN is ridiculous. They've messed up so much. Dutch peacekeepers looking the other way in Bosnia, etc.
Wait until the Americans wake up and mod losers like you down. Why does slashdot always post shit like this when the Americans are asleep?
"You're less incompetent than we are, but we should still run it."
stop, think, then speak.
Because all nations must accept ICC for it to have any validity.
Because US is not an exception or above criticism.
Because US has a strong military presence all over the world.
Because US widely uses its military power for monetary gain for its corporations.
Because US has recently committed atrocities that need to be addressed in ICC.
For UN to have any credibility to deal with international security issues US must accept the ICC.
Any tool that can be used, should be used to force US accept the ICC.
The complaint against them is that they didn't accomplish anything -- if anything, they made matters worse by attracting people to safe-zones that turned out not to be safe.
On the contrary, the complaint is that the UN was notified by its peacekeepers on the ground of the impending genocide. The UN ordered its forces to stand aside and ignore the genocide. Who gave the order? The current Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
Have a look with google at the real story.
I beg to differ.
Modern chemical weapons, e.g. aerosol bombs,
can just as devastating as small nuclear devices in an urban setting. They aren't called WMD for nothing.
They are easier to produce and I am amazed that they haven't been used yet in a large scale terrorist attack.
I'm also amazed that the terrorists have not attacked the US infrastructure. Cut power lines,
communications. You would do much more damage to to the US economy in the short term than by doing what they have done. In the long term current tactic could be more beneficial since US uses a lot more money to run its military and becomes the international "bad boy".
This just isn't true -- the UN (under general daliare) saved tremendous amounts of people. they had a tiny force because the situation was not considered a genocide. why wasn't it? largely because the U.S. _refused_ to let the security counsil declare it as one.
Good book: We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families
good documentary: ghosts of rwanda
another book: Shake Hands with the Devil : The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (by gen. Dallaire)
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
When ICANN got rid of their At-Large board members (like Karl Auerbach), they lost something even more important: Credibility. BTW, his web pages regarding his service at ICANN speak volumes over why this is even an issue.
I wish the U.S. Dept. of Commerce had insisted back elsewhen that the regional representive model for the At-Large ICANN board members would have been the actual structure of the organization. Instead it is made up of special interest groups and early internet corporations that have been able to maintain their current position in part due to having grabbed the concepts first, not because of technical competiance.
In this whole mess, it is the U.S. Department of Commerce that really deserves to get the blame for the whole thing being so screwed up. Particularly where money is involved (like registration fees) or the allocation of scarce resources (like IP addresses). Why the U.S. government getting blame? They were the ones who set up the mess in the first place as the original internet infrastructure was based in the USA and only later moved out elsewhere in the world.
The United Nations is only trying to do a "land grab" of their own, as this has the potential of being a rather influential governing structure of world commerce. It has the potential of being one of the few things that if directly under UN control would allow the UN to be more than a debate society of national diplomats. IMHO all the UN should be is a debate society, and any ambitions to go beyond that are doomed to cause more harm than good.
no.
That was easy. Next question.
We have been the leading impetus for inaction because we refused to say genocide for a long time. Colin Powell finally did, against the administration, and then finally the administration followed suit.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
You have it backwards. So long as one country is "in control" they actually have essentially no power to globally impose "what is not acceptable in the Internet". There is no way in hell the rest of the world is going to actually submit to any system where the US can keep the EU from hosting "patented" GPL software, no way the US can keep the Netherlands from hosting 16 year old porn, no way the US can keep Ziare from hosting DeCSS.
...well... the US and US and several other countries will cheerfully jump on board. Any country that resists Trusted Computing would be physically incapable of accessing the global network. The Trust system locks out any non-compliant connection. And it would be "the locked-out country's fault" becuase they were non-compliant with the global standard.
The very REASON there is support by powerful elements inside the US to turn "control" of the internet over to the UN IS TO BE ABLE TO GLOBALLY IMPOSE RULES AND RESTRICTIONS. If some attempted change ot rule or restriction came out of the US it would be "imperialism" and fail. If some change or rule or restriction comes out of the UN, well then it is a "Golbal Treaty" and governments are almost obligated to jump on board. It also becomes very possible for a majority of compliant countries to declare that treaty compliance is a condition for some country to receive an international network connection. According to the treaty the US and EU and other compliant countries would cut off any non-compliant country from the global network.
If the US attempts to impose Trusted Computing on the world, that is "imperialism" and no one will stand for it. If the UN decides on Trusted Computing standards for the Global network
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Instead of making this an argument of for/against the UN - why not try to look at the arguments in the article.
/Coward out
First of all: ICANN is an American organisation - and is subject to American political influence. Thats just _wrong_ - not because its American, but because its "one" country that runs it. The internet does not consist of only one country. As an European would I feel better if it was an European organisation? - no.. probably not. The internet is a global communications infrastructure and should be overseen by an international organisation.
Second: nobody in the articly says that it should be the UN or the ITU that control the internet. The article says they are trying to sort "global control" of the internet. All it says is that they would like an "international body" to control it.
Given the international nature of the internet I fail to see whats so bad about wanting an international body to run it instead of an American organisation.
Hell - if they want the ITU to run it then fine by me. It will most probably mean that the decisions will be made by governments (instead of whoever makes them now) and the technical infrastructure would most probably still be run by the exactly same organisations that runs it today.
And if we look at the facts: there's a much bigger chance of actually knocking some heads around if its an internatioal organisation running it. China, Pakistan, Russia, Romania (no offence) - but countries that are the source of alot hackers and huge amounts of spam dont really care if an American organisation says "shame on you". If the UN on the other hand start slapping them around because their citizens make sabotage against the "world communication infrastructure" I seriously belive it would be "easier" (not easy enough though) to make these countries take these matters a bit more seriously.
Just my 2 cents
Of course it's America's fault for not treating them like children and taking care of everything for them, and of course they would have screamed bloodly murder that we were meddling in their affairs if we had.
Then after piles of dead start washing up on the beach, we were being called a bunch of cheap bastards when we didn't start spending billions, which we did, to bail out yet another disaster that could have been avoided for practically nothing.
You know what maybe we should just retain control of the internet, hell Al Gore invented it so it's ours by default. I'm sure he has a patent on the "www" portion of the address. So all you whiners out there owe us a quarter, every time you type in an address.
So yeah that it's a little upsetting that Amsterdam didn't get a fair chance at www.freakyanalsex.com, but get over it already. Freakin whaaa people. It's about naming and some basic standards not content... idiot
All the replies are missing the point completely.
.tv country doing it individually on their own.
Lets try again:
Spam is a global problem. It would make sense to fight in a global manner instead of every tom and dick ISP and
The problem with the US dictating the direction of such efforts is that the US measures to combat spam are watered down due to the DMA lobbyists and other such vermin.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
The UN 'don't lift a gosh dang finger to help' tactic in the former Yugoslavia was 'prudent' only in the sense that when all non-Serbs had been annihilated or subjugated the conflict would presumably have stopped.
If, however, you take the view that the non-Serb inhabitants of Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia had some sort of right to remain alive, free and in their homes, the NATO strategy of _stopping_ the attacks looks a lot better.
I'm not a libertarian and I don't believe those bizarre UN conspiracy theories that seem so important to the far-right wing at the moment; but in this particular case it's hard to intepret the UN's inaction as anything other than tacit approval for a war of conquest.
Well, okay, maybe that's going a bit far.
But it's lucky NATO were there.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I think you should stop watching the Fox News bullshit propaganda and pay a little more attention to your own country's abuse record.
We do deserve some grief over some of the trade issues, we have made some nasty mistakes, but those are being taken care of are they not?
Most of those "opposed" to US international agenda are the ones that are unhappy that the Cold War is over and upset that the US actually expects them to fucking knock it off already (France, Germany, Russia, etc, etc etc) and quit selling weapons and nuke tech to every other third world nation.
If you want to get in the nitty gritty of it all. Afganistan is Russia's fault, well wait weren't the Germans there before for them causing trouble, and we cannot forget the French and British colonial ambitions.
Did we make a mess by using the tactic of "The Enemy of my Enemy is a friend" to fight the Communist threat. (Everyone has seemed to conviently forgotten thatt Iraq was an ally in the Cold War with the USSR?) Hell yea we did, but we are paying for it in blood and money, and you know what we are cleaning up said mess, unlike so many countries who tend to be our biggest detracters in addition to being the biggest contributers to the nightmare that is the Middle East today.
If the US had aspirations of global dominancy we would already own the planet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot and has obviously never actually been to the US. (There are plenty of Global International Companies that would like too, but they do not repesent the US people.)
We had the opportunity at total global domination 50 years ago, lets see how that played out. Had control of Europe gave it back. Had control of England or could have gave it back. Had control of the Middle East gave it back Had control of Japan gave it back Had control of portions of Asia gave it back Had Control of portions of Africa gave it back Could have steamrolled Russia (Who made the Nazies look the kind of people you'd let baby sit your kids) we should have but didn't We were the only country not destroyed economically by WWII so what did we do? We poured money to rebuild everyone else, who with a few exceptions never paid us back.
I'm ranting since I'm sick of lets take a stab at the US to some how validate their argument tactics. The UN is a political organization and has no business dealing with what was and still isa primarily a US business venture sponsored by public and private funds. Any country can set up their own internet and tell us to piss off, but if they want to play in our game then they are going to have to play by our rules.
Notice how the headline says "some developing countries." I've postulated for some time that the UN exists in practical terms as very little other than a promotional vehicle for the Third World, and articles like this should prove it to those of us who might still have lingering doubts.
Mind you, that's not to say that I necessarily consider the UN to be any more or less evil than any other group, relatively speaking. Pretty much everybody wants to take over the world these days...and because most of the countries the UN represents can't overcome domestic famine problems, let alone the rest of the planet, they have to band together and funnel their ambitions to do so into a collective body. As far as vehicles for pushing the global domination agenda are concerned, Israel has America, America has itself, Europe has the EU, and Africa/Asia has the UN.
Given that all of the above people more or less want the same thing, we then must ask...which of these particular megalomaniacal entities do we want presiding over ICANN? I think it's fairly safe to say that whoever else it is, it shouldn't be the UN. The Internet isn't a technology with which the archetypical UN member-state really has a lot of experience with...Concepts that they tend to be a lot more familiar with include fun things like armed neo-feudalism amid constant inter-ethnic geurilla warfare, a GDP primarily supported by small arms and drug trafficking, a phone network that might reach 10% of the population (if they're lucky, and if said phone network is able to survive random RPGs for any length of time) and Marxist or Mussolinist dictators.
That isn't to say that I in any way advocate the current US government either. Bush might not be a dictator himself yet, but by all accounts he's spending 25 hours a day working on it. I think my point here is that ICANN is run by (one hopes, anyway) and for the benefit of people who are an order of magnitude more intelligent, mature, and generally civilised than anybody you normally see working in politics. Because of this, it's vitally important that we keep any advisory or instrumental boards/groups associated with the Internet *out* of the hands of any and all political entities whatsoever. Groups like the IETF (and ICANN, to a degree) are customarily populated by, among others, computer programmers and scientists...ergo, people who again customarily have a brain in their heads. Governments, by contrast, are (at least in the contemporary sense) largely the domain of corrupt, completely emotive geriatric religious fanatics, to whom reason is altogether an alien concept. We need to keep our representative groups in the hands of those who actually do have the necessary neurological/cognitive capacity to govern effectively, rather than allowing them to fall under the perview of those who most assuredly do not.
>> forced prostitution rings in the Balkans
... revenge.
>Perhaps you're confusing NATO with UN? Italian NATO peacekeepers were accused by the Spanish
>Secret Service of running a prostitution ring. Also, DynCorp (A private US company) was involved
>in a prostition-ring there; members even filmed the rape of a young girl.
This is sickening. I never heared of this. It's even more sickening when they force girls to prostitute. And it is one of those moments when, with all the criticism, I wish theese "soldiers" could stand trial under the penalty of death.
What will the parents, friends, sons, brothers of those girls become? The next terrorist group that will start bombing Europe with a simple motive
I really hope they were set an example of and in front of their victims. Maybe you can provide some links to the outcome of all of this if any.
"But tell me, wtf does that have to do with the bloody governmence of the internet?" good point! I take it everyone concedes that an international edifice like the internet ahould not be governed by the laws and whims of one country? Especially now when it is used to conduct a lot of business, scientific, financial & entertainment. I wouldn't want Bush getting carried away with another 'Homeland security' bill constraining the internet !
Oh no, not the UN...
The past decades (especially the Iraq War controversy) shows that the UN needs a serious overhaul in order to actually work and be able to do something about problems, like a country not yielding to resolutions. We have Israel still occupying land and we had Saddam not respecting the ceasefire (ratified into a resolution) from the first Gulf War. In those cases the UN must be able and willing to enforce their stand through the use of sanctions and military means if nessesary.
Without respect the UN will only make things worse.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
where do you get your shoddy % for the military may i ask? please provide a link because from personal experience i can tell your full of it.
Very cheap when you consider...
1. Iraq is free and democratic.
2. Iraq poses a shining example to the rest of the Middle East.
3. A stable Middle East is safer for America.
4. There will be ecconomic payoff in the long run (yes, oil is nice while we still have some left on this planet).
I would put a price tag on this investment of... PRICELESS
Life is not for the lazy.
Echelon IV, here we come!
I'm all for a UN-controlled system replacing ICANN in theory, it's probably a more fair solution for all involved, but I'm worried about the practicalities. I just can't see a large transfer like this going down "without a hitch" -- something will mess up, despite the best intentions on both sides. And when even the tiniest thing messes up, the UN's detractors will leap upon it like rabid hounds, and it'll become just another "scandal" that's blown out of proportion.
But none of that money went towards those causes. That's the money they literally lost track of.
They did not spend the few hundred million they didn't have and America witheld their advance warning of the tsunami...
The Internet was not invented by Al Gore, although he was loosly attached in the top of the political management of the project that did.
And incidentally the naming was not a part of that project. Furtehrmore the triple w part (HTML etc) was invented in Switzerland, at CERN by a Brit.
wow, that was a long troll with lots of white space in it. I especially like it how you think that a few million dollars a year will stop tsunamis. Of course then somehow you use this to turn America into the poor victim when they Americans donated a remarkably small amount per capita. My own country Australia donated thirty five times more per capita, and donated most in absolute aid.
No way the US tsunami aid got into the billions.
And with Al Gore patenting www? Unfortunately America is the only place stupid enough to have software patents at the moment (don't worry, we're getting stupider by the minute), so only Americans will owe Al Gore quarters. That's good cause only Americans have quarters.
This is actually quite fun. I like seeing zealot trolls (or at least people pretending to be zealots) making a fool out of themselves. I've posted as Anon Coward because this is very off topic.
When we get reports of ICANN's incompetance, ignorance and corruption, /. is full of "stop letting the corporations run it", "surely someone else could do a batter job" etc ...
... hmmm ...
Someone has an idea for who can run it (in this case the UN, but it happens every time), and all we hear is "But they are corrupt/incompetant, ignorant/self-motivated.
Maybe we can use this dicussion to decide not "Should the UN run ICANN" but "Who should run ICANN".
Aside: when someone points out a truth about USA that people don;t like, it is anti-american USA-bashing. When a thread like this continually refers to one or two situation of the UN, it is "fair political comment"
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
So some 3rd world countries aren't happy that the US government controls the Internet?
Now, not being an American myself I still think this is bullshit and sour grapes.
Instead of bitching that the UN should control it so these little third world shitholes have just as much or more say over developed nations perhaps they could just start their own Internet?
As far as I understand, the Internet is just an agreement between the people who own networks on how to connect them together.
It's just like signing a contract - you don't like the conditions then don't sign it.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but as the parent already stated, all sides were happily fighting each other. It wasn't single sided Serb agression.
And please don't forget that each time the EU came up with a compromise to stop hostilities, there was a certain US president telling them that of course it wasn't any of his bussiness but if he were them he wouldn't listen. Because obviously EU plans are bad by definition. At the same time stating that Europe was incapable of dealing with their own problems and 'reluctantly' entering the fray..hah! And whose bright idea was it again to let the mujahedeen go there anyway?
From where I'm standing it looks like the US wants to keep the UN docile and the EU confused. That's the way for them to keep maximum influence and power. And that's the game, nothing to do with inefficiency or incompetence.
But we dont want the ICC.. moron
So genocide is being committed in Sudan because Bush opposes the ICC? And not because some murderous psychopaths are in power over there? Bush said "I refuse to accept the ICC", and lo, tens of thousands of people just up and got slaughtered (but because they're poor and black the UN won't call it genocide).
The ICC is not the only solution to the problem over there. Maybe if some of the rest of the world would get up off its collective ass and INTERVENE, fewer people would die.
But it's easier just to sit back, scoop up another cracker full of caviar, and blame the US.
...at a U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society...
:O
Wow, a World Summit on the Information Society?? I didn't think they were popular since the early 1990s.
Hunnamunnagunda... pure energy
Putting ICANN under the UN is a VERY bad idea, as they would have no ability to resolve disputes with any legal validity. A unilaterally authority is better than none.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Maybe the people who used to run the oil-for-food program are available!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Who meta-moderates the meta-moderators?
Yes, I agree, but don't you think that it would be wrong for a worldwide body to decide on what should and should not be allowed? I mean would you still support a UN controlled internet if Germany decided that all pro-Nazi websites were dangerous to world peace and got a resolution passed which effectively banned a pro-Nazi websites including wikipedia articles on the pro-Nazi movement?
http://chrono.posterous.com/
He didn't say the web, he said the Internet.
But you knew that.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
If you actually did research instead of getting your information off of Oprah you would have known that after 2 congressional inquiries it was found that of the 52 cases of reported sexual harrassment (ie not rape) over the last 10 years at the AF Academy all exept one case was handled correctly by authorities, including punishments. Not sure where you pulled the 81% too scared to report from. As for the retaliation, from personal knowledge I can put forward that in a lot of cases it was after an individual was already in trouble (underage drinking, honor code violation) that all of a sudden they had been sexually assaulted and need special treatment.
He provided hyperlinks to the organization's websites, which is not, as a gneral rule, although that informative, or all that great of a response to criticism. If someone criticizes NATO, I can't just refer to their web page and say "Ha, you are refuted!"
They need to be replaced so I can have decent vacations again.
[..] none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in [..]
You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.
Nothing happens unless there is a UN member or a coalition of UN members that has the means and the willingness to interfere. Other countries than the US do take on missions if they feel they have the means to pull it off.
What about France on the Ivory Coast? A quote:
"Without France, we would find ourselves in a second Rwanda," claimed Ibrahim Coulibaly, one of the rebels who took control of the north in September 2002, in an interview with Courrier International (Nov 17).
Or the UNMEE force in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the Netherlands and Canada initially volunteered, but only after explicit assurances by the US through the media that they could call in US air support from bases in Saudi Arabia if needed. The force now mostly consists of troops from India, Jordania, and Kenya.
65,000 UN soldiers (excluding forces like the French one on the Ivory Coast) are currently serving in 16 UN operations worldwide, and most of those are succesful.
Srebrenica is a good example of what happens if you are willing but do not really have the means to pull it off yourself (and your 'ally' the US is secretly arming the side you are supposed to disarm according to your UN mandate). The Netherlands' force mistakenly assumed it could rely on air support by allies if needed, and the small force didn't have the means to take out Serbian tanks. The Serbs blocked munitions and arms supplies over the road for months before they attacked the enclave.
The US is the only country with a network of air force bases all over the world, and even the US would probably have had problems providing sufficient air lift and air support quickly in Rwanda. For smaller countries involvement in Rwanda could only have ended in embarassment.
All of this has hardly any bearing on the functioning of the UN bureaucracy. It is about cynical international diplomacy.
Most, if not all, were forced into being by the US, not the UN.
How American to blindly bash the UN, when the US causes most of their woes.....
I don't even know where to begin... it is precisely this hathotic attitude that justifies the US not getting invovled with the ICC. Instead of going after North Korea, Somalia, and Sudan, the ICC is going to go after the United States and then when it's done it will disband.
hatotic: Feelings of pleasure derived from hating someone or something. Also my new word of the day.
Start keying those fuckers. Maybe then they won't think they can do that shit with impunity.
ICANN would have allowed the Hutus and Tutsis to have have separate domains like .hu and .tu rather than sharing the .rw domain /Going to hell.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And from this article, I can't see any valid reason to transfer the responsibilities of ICANN to the UN.
critics say that [ICANN] is subject to U.S. political influence.
What is that?
The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic
I am not a neocon, and my opinions about the UN are not a tactic, but rather my actual opinions, based on all the information I have observed throughout my life.
It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place
Just because they don't agree with you doesn't mean they're ignorant of history. I think there are a lot of things the UN does well, and I think it is important, but it wasn't created to be "the World's Government", which is the role it's trying to grow into.
Next time you have a problem with assertions people make about the UN, try rebutting their assertions instead of trying to label them "neocons" and implying that they are only asserting their views as part of a conspiracy with an agenda of building the First American Reich.
when i was living in bulgaria i met may weapon dealers that were afraid of that bush would lose the elections because they were directly selling weapons from him,selling weapons to balkans, to middle-east,etc, will this ever be stopped...its bad when most americans doesn't know what happens arround the world, because americans news rarely brings this kind of things.....
Here's one ref, just from a quick google search:
m il itary-rape.html
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2003/march/031103
This is a different study than I saw last, and it has a higher rate of sexual harassment.
Have you *ever* looked up anything about the rate of rape against women in the military? It's sickening. It's case after case after case after case. Karpinski herself has spoken out against this on several occasions, especially against those she sees as helping encourage the "s*** happens" culture concerning women. I once read her talking about taking concerns about how women were faring before the invasion of Iraq to Sanchez, who basically told her "it comes with the territory".
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
And I'm sure you'll provide a link for your numbers; I gladly provide links for mine.
t s/
s /W eb Version Final AFA Survey Appendix Interim Report.pdf
i ew ?file=Hackworth_092404.htm
Here's a different study than I found previously, so the numbers are a bit different - but the general result is the same:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/29/academy.assaul
Here's the full report:
http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Inspections/IPO/report
How on earth anyone could call a 42.4% (by this study) reprisal rate correct handling, for example, is beyond me.
Here's an article which has a lot of quotes from Karpinski, who has been furious over the issue, on the subject:
http://www.military.com/Resources/ResourceFileV
Some examples:
"By April 2004, rapes and assaults of American female soldiers were epidemic in the Middle East. But even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hotline in Kuwait was still being answered by a machine advising callers to leave a phone number where they could be reached.
"Nobody had a telephone number, for crying out loud," says Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, then commanding general of the 800th Military Police Brigade, who was in Kuwait preparing to bring her unit home after running the military prisons in Iraq."
------
"Karpinski says. "The attitude of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the ground commander in Iraq, permeated the entire chain of command: The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory." "
------
(etc - read the article; I've got dozens more)
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
May the metamods be upon you!
My post addresses a real issue that was handwaved over by the parent, pointing out that it shouldn't be pooh-poohed. I didn't use it as a platform to attack or troll.
The various doings of the US Government pale by comparison with the sins of the kleptocracies, despotisms, satrapies, and assorted other tyrannies that make up most ot the UN's membership.
The UN may not have a monopoly on bureaucratic cockups, but it is the one place on earth where, for example, Robert Mugabe's lackeys are the nominal equals of George Bush's representatives.
Just as a donut that's composed 70% of dogshit will probably taste like dogshit, the UN - composed as it is mostly of kleptocracies, despotisms, satrapies, and assorted other tyrannies - will probably destroy anything it touches.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
http://www.ptsd-alliance.org/Pervasive.htm
The continued pervasiveness of our soldiers facing this trauma from their own coworkers is unconscionable.
>> You never hear the small, positive stories.
>> The media want to see blood. It sells.
> How on earth can you compare "small positive
> stories" to the bloodbath in Rwanda?
Eradicating smallpox?
Now that really was genocide.
But accepting validity of ICC would be illegal, something about not letting any outside power being able to control our nation without first taking the power from our cold dead hands or thereabouts. Yeah, I really can see why we need some foregein body telling us what for.
So the ICC's validity is worth 200,000 people dead in Darfur? If giving up your sovereignty is that important to you, why don't you Europeans just petition to be admitted to the United States?
This is my sig.
So the ICC's validity is worth 200,000 people dead in Darfur? That's European logic for you. So long as Europeans don't die, the world is better off. If giving up your sovereignty is that important to you, why don't you Europeans just petition to be admitted to the United States? I would extend such an invitation until I realized just how morally disgusting Europe is.
In all of human history, Europeans have NEVER done anything that benefits anyone other than Europeans, not real. Crimes that the USA have inflicted on the world PALE compared to the messes brought on by European colonialism and its aftermath. Have you looked at Africa lately? Way to go France and Germany.
History for the last 500 years has either been Europe brutalizing the world or the rest of the world, in particular, the United States, riding to the rescue of the Europe.
Until Europe comes to the defense of liberty in one place, any place actually, the way the United States did at Normandy Beach, until Europe is willing to put its cities on the nuclear line to defend another nation the way the United States did for Europe against Communist Russia, then Europeans can take their alphabet soup of worthless treaties and their high minded diplomacy and shove them up their asses.
This is my sig.
12 years of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, 100's of meetings and many treaties and diplomatic maneuvers, did nothing to depose Saddam Hussein and the Taliban and bring about elections to two countries in the middle east.
180,000 soldiers from the United States and United Kingdom did.
This is my sig.
Not to mention an end to the genocide in the Balkans. As usual, it was the United States and United Kingdom coming in to clean that mess up too.
Actually, the British alone among Europeans made the huge sacrifice for freedom by fighting World War II alone! They could have quit, signed a peace treaty and kept their empire. But nope, they saw what needed to be done, and threw it all on the table to stop the Nazis and the Japs.
This is my sig.
How can you justify staying out of ICC?
It's function is to uphold the same ideals that US seems to hold dear.
It's International Crime Court. It goes after Criminals.
Oh, I get it. It's criminal only when North Korea, Somalia, Sudan or any other country does it but it's ok when US does it.
Or how can you justify using what ever reason to torture, to kill noncombatants and violate all kinds of human rights?
All of which US has done recently and continues to do.
Who is saying ICC will disband? It should by all means be a permanent Court. ICC will go after others besides US. I can understand US reasoning behind not joining ICC. It is just that the implications of those reasons are horrific. Human rights violations are systematic and approved by the chain of command. Even if the approval is passive.
I don't hate US by the way. US should just play by the rules that it has agreed to in international treaties. ICC is the oversight for those treaties.
I really don't hate US. There are some very bright people over there. It's just that the masses are stupid. And unfortunately they are the ones that decide who gets elected. And there is nothing in the news about US investing in education lately. Just the opposite. Instead US has increased military spending. US military budget is the largest in the world IIRC.
<flamebait>
US is a good example how even democracy can fail.
US is supposed to be for the people by the people.
Instead it is for the special interests by the easily manipulated people.
</flamebait>
How is ICC about giving up sovereignty?
It is about upholding the international treaties that US has signed.
Treaties about human rights and what not.
I agree with you about the colonialism and it's aftemath. It is disgusting. And it is even more disgusting when you think about what is currently being done by corporations. They continue the colonialism in a new capitalist form. And what country is doing most of the exploitation.
You guessed it! Your dear old US of A. I'm not saying that Europeans are not doing it. They are. And it is just as disgusting. It's just that most of the money goes to US based corps.
About WW2: the US did not get involved until Japan attacked it directly. US was supporting UK but not doing anything on the military front. It was only until US citizen began dying that it "rode to the rescue" of Europe.
About Europe not doing anything: What about countless conflicts that European nations have helped negotiate peace treaties for?
Oh, yeah. It's not helping unless someone dies in the process. Sending troops to enforce peace is not the best way of getting results. Lasting results. Has US fixed any of the problems in Afganistan or Iraq or Somalia by sending troops?
No. Except maybe get rid of government that US helped put in place. US is really only cleaning up messes that it was responsible for in the first place. Remember Osama? Trained by the US. Saddam Hussein got his WMD from US. Afganistan. Ok. Some of the blame for Afganistan belongs to Russia/USSR.
As it is, the US is getting to be as infamous for it's human rights record as the above states. Either stand up for ALL people or for none.
Evil Space Monkeys could be stealing YOUR bandwidth!
You've got to stop watching FOX news. First of all... it wasn't just us money they lost, but iraqi!!!
1. the Iraqi nation is not better of.
2. Iraq is a shining example to the rest of the middle east that if you dont do exactly as the US wants they'll invade you and destroy your home.
3. America is on the other side of the globe compared to the middle east, there was never any question about safety, only money, lets face it, the only foreign terrorists to attach the US were trained by the US. Do you see a pattern here?
4. Of course there is an ecconomic payoff, for example if we both sell crack and I kill you and steal all your crack I'll get richer. Still doesn't make it right does it?
Considering how some people marvel at the fact that "Iraq is free" it seems odd how the same people dont seem to give a crap about the Iraqis, weird isn't it?
ICANN is no good any more, to heavily influenced by a single government. UN is no good because well its not really united.
.com for example should only be given to actively global commercial entities, not a local shopping chain, ditto for the rest of the main tld's org, net, gov etc
.gov.??) ie microsoft has to apply for .com and .co.us or whatever, if somebody got there first then tough, you can buy it from them. And the misdirects argument is not a reason to hand over domains, if you don't advertise your url properly then that's your fault.
This kind of organization needs to dissaociate itself from any government or country, as the matters they handle are mainly technological. Most if not all of the internet needs to be handled in the same way.
As for how we can do this, now that's a question!
The bigger problem is that TLD's and URL's in general are too out of date, and without that many rules.
Oh and no one has the automatic right to domain names, (exp possibly
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa103199 .htm
This is a 1999 link, saying:
"According to the United Nations, the United States owes them $1.7 billion in unpaid dues and must pay $550 million of that amount by the end of 1999 or lose its vote in the UN General Assembly."
I don't know the current situation, but the billions used for sponsoring a nuclear power against any non-proliferation treaty arived on time all those years.
some AC (possibly you) posted that i was a google-searching fraud. I replied this:
i na _protests.html
no -- i just happen to hate it when people call me a liar.
to speak about my seven years in china -- an article i wrote about the chengdu riots.
http://future.state.gov/where/stories/events/ch
just look at the "tansey" part of djtansey -- then search for "tansey" in that article. sorry -- but i'm for real.
you can email me (my email is listed) to see that my name is indeed the same name quoted on that state.gov page. or lookup my email on google to see that it is my name.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
I would hope people would do much more research than just assuming that such a vitriolic blog posting is true.
For most people in the modern world, whether the medium is cable television, radio, or the internet, truth is measured by the amount of agreement with the beholder's world view. Since we see the same old world-views rehashed again and again, it's not surprising that people take this as vindication of their (mostly static) beliefs.
In other words, it seems there's not enough room in this town for open-mindedness and strong opinions.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
...by ignoring the genocide in the Congo, whilst approving the US's wholly illegal invasion AGAINST THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL'S VOTE in Iraq.
Given the current level of US-backed war which plagues the globe, I think maybe-just maybe-it's time to stop trusting them.
What a chickenshit troll. Only reason I saw your fresh crap was from the metamod, but you're such a traitor to America that I was hoping to add you to my foe list--except that you're too great a coward to post under your own name.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topN ews&storyID=7745333
So, it looks like the UN may well be the world's largest, and best-organized source of sexual abuse.
Yeah, let's give them MORE responsibility.
668: Neighbour of the Beast