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Iran Blocks, Unblocks Access to Google
morpheus83 writes "Iran has blocked access to the Google search engine and its Gmail email service as part of a clampdown on material deemed to be offensive. Hamid Shahriari, the secretary of Iran's National Council of Information did not explain why the sites were being blocked. Google, Gmail and several other foreign sites appeared to be inaccessible to Iranian users from Monday morning. Iran has tough censorship on cultural products and internet access, banning thousands of websites and blogs containing sexual and politically critical material as well as women's rights and social networking sites." That didn't take long. Iran has now
unblocked Google claiming the censorship was an error.
As has happened many times before, What starts as a simple censorship of a website ALWAYS turns into more nastier things while the 'people in charge' are trying to control the masses.
.... as well as womens rights") and are now clutching at straws - it can only result in resentment from the citizens.
How stupid are these governments - really. Do they honestly believe that the problems of their country can be solved by stopping someone having a GMail account, or preventing them looking up camel porn on google?
Iran is in a desperate attempt to return to old school biblical times (great if you are not a woman - "Iran has tough censorship on internet access
Actually, it has been unblocked.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
I think it's a great idea. After all, Google can give you plans and instructions for making a nuclear weapon! We wouldn't want that information to fall into the wrong hands.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
Google doesn't have the bomb, do they? I'm pretty sure Disney does...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
This comes right on the heels of the TOR arrest in Germany. Man, they told me freedom of speech wouldn't count for much if Bush was re-elected. And they were right!
Go somewhere random
Censorship of Google is the least problem there today unfortunately.
At some point along the line we Americans got a bit funny about making fun of other people. Some call it political correctness, others call it cultural sensitivity, and even others call it complete hogwash. Whatever it's called in your neck of the woods, times have changed, and tactics for dehumanizing the enemy have changed.
In the obvious run up to the war with Iran, it seems like the media is all too happy to paint them with the bigot, sexist, and totalitarian brushes. We are doing this with China. We did this with Iraq. Now, with Iran in our sights, they also get the black tar treatment.
And if you buy into any of this at all, you're the problem with this country.
I heard on NPR last week, from an Iranian who had returned from visiting family, that there is a large contingent of the population that is pro-American and is looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government? I know, I know... the bad guys have the guns. However, if they can get the guns (and more importantly, ship them to Iraq), surely those Iranians who want regime change can take matters into their own hands.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
So if Iran blocking google is -1 and Iran unblocking google is +1. Isn't it like nothing happened? So whats the story?
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
And I'll bet you anything their efforts will be ignored by the US, they'll get bitch-slapped by the regime for stepping out of the line, and they won't be so pro-American anymore.
The loss of information is a step in the direction of cultural collapse. If you constantly treat your citizens as children, you either a) stop being productive or b) get a bunch of very angry citizens.
Iran, you might have a culture that demands things, but if you force them onto your population, you will create resentment, resentment becomes anger, and anger begets revolution. Remember the Shah? The current government is running along the same path, and will meet with the same end.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I can't believe you cited IranFocus.com That website is really questionable.
http://www.iranian.com/Milaninia/2005/August/MKO/
...our government blocks fascist sites, too.
Th US has to stop trying to be the world police. Why should Iran just expect the US to jump in? They should grow some balls and try standing up for themselves.
Yeah, that's a great idea in theory, really.
But, ya know, it doesn't ever seem to work out so well. I think it has some to do with the way the government handles it, and some to do with how the people inside handle it.
We did it in Afghanistan, and it made a massive mess. We did it in Cuba, didn't work (I blame THAT 100% on the US government, but I doubt it would have worked anyway).
Did it to a lesser extent in Poland in WWII, everyone ended up pretty much dead.
It could work, but man, that'd be risky (what if Iran found out it was coming from us? What if THEY found it?)
Is it just me, or would it be somewhat hard to implement a good block-nationwide accidentally on Google?
If you have a regime set up for such censorship even, you'd imagine that there would be enough red-tape to make sure that such things don't accidentally happen. This is one of those things akin to the nuclear weapons being flown over the US that just don't logically seem to be things that within reason can occur by accident.
Moreso Google has so many IPs, portals, links into them from Google Search on websites, etc... that it seems that it would be one of the harder ones to accidentally block.
Maybe they pre-set it up to block it, and had a script or whatever to do so... but I'd imagine that type of script would require root access. Who typed the password?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
From iranfocus.com
"Iran should stop executing children"
Bad, but we try an increasing number of childern as adults, and states keep lowering the age at which children can be tried as adults.
"Iran hangs three in south-west"
We are in good company here, not only do we execute plenty of people, but don't we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world?
"Western countries on Thursday voiced concern at the rising number of executions in Iran"
Didn't Bush and Texas execute a horrific number in his term as governer?
Most of the rest of the statements on this site are about public hangings. At least they have the honesty to execute people in public, in this country we hide from our executions, so people never really 'know' in a gut sense what they are paying for.
To quote Jesus:(approx.)
"Remove the beam from your own eye before you worry about the splinter in your neighbors eye"
Yeah, look at all the suicide bombings and unrest in Ira.. oh, I thought we were talking about Iraq.
Why is this not a big problem for Iran again?
MABASPLOOM!
Would you please separate between the government and the people of Iran, like a good journalist would do?
I know all Slashdot editors want to work for CNN one day.
But to get there you have to be a good journalist.
As soon as you work for CNN you still can shoot people in front of the camera for dramatic effect.
I'm sorry, why am I supposed to care again? First, off, I'm not some xenophobic "woohoo my country is the best" zealot.
I just don't get why I'm supposed to care about the internal problems of every nation on Earth.
Did you know that in America [and Canada] that two responsible gay people can't live together without contempt, or marry in a willing church? Did you know we still permit affirmative action to take place. etc, etc, etc. How about we concern ourselves with our country, they concern themselves with theirs, and we're all set.
Heck, in Ontario, there are already plans to pull democracy backwards, see this for an example of how to take democracy (what little we have left) out of our hands and into special interest groups. When seats are appointed no longer by ridings [or better yet, popular vote] we end up with a shitty place to be. When minorities get to influence policy we'll end up with a province running out of control. Chasing the fantasy of every naysayer.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
But, not to worry, Google will provide the Iranian government a complete list of users and their searches.
So, President Ahmacompletewhackjob can sleep at night knowing his has fulfilled his duty to the mullahs.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I find it quite interesting that while Iran gets lots of flak these days for their Sharia-based legislature and lack of democracy and liberty, Saudi Arabia, where conditions are actually quite similar, is almost never mentioned. I wonder why ...
P.S. Saudi Arabia actually rates lower than Iran by some standards: Example.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
While I agree in principle, there is a very large difference in wanting a new government and being willing to kill/die to bring it about.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Isn't that really Stalins fault? I mean he did basically order the Red army to sit outside Warsaw while the Germans killed the resistance. He was just pissed about us helping the Polish resistance in the 1st place, not to mention the fact he wanted the polish Resistance dead. He gave orders that allied air craft dropping supplies in Warsaw be shot at.
You mad
Iran is in a desperate attempt to return to old school biblical times
Koranical times
Technoli
"Iran should stop executing children"
I realize you're stupid, but execute doesn't mean the same thing as incarcerate.
"but don't we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world?"
No. No, "we" don't.
I realize drawing moral equivalence between Iran and the US is what keeps you people going, but pretending what happens here is as horrific as what happens in Iran is unrealistic and intentionally inaccurate.
Why do you go so far out of your way to make the things that happen here look as bad as what happens there? Why are you so insistent on peddling such intellectual dishonesty to further your agenda?
it's really this simple: make a list of your complaints about governments in the west
now judge the government of iran on the basis of those criticisms
in other words, on the basis of the principles on which you vocally criticize the west, you should be loudly criticizing tehran
"And if you buy into any of this at all, you're the problem with this country."
ok, there's a criticism of yours: the drumbeat up to war, the propagandizing of a populace towards conflict
dude!
ever since 1979, the government of iran has been on propaganda full alert about demonizing the decadent immoral great satan of the west. constant rhetoric, demonstrations, down with the great satan. all through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s
so on YOUR BASIS for criticizing the west: dmeonization of another people for a drumbeat up to war, on YOUR BASIS!: tehran comes out orders of magnitude worse than any criticism you could level at london, paris, washington dc, etc
using YOUR RATIONALE, you should be 10-100x angrier at tehran than any government in the west
so go to the front of the line sir, and hurl some of your venom at tehran, unless you want to forfeit your claim to intellectual honesty
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
not so easy to get your hands on a good ak-47 in a totalitarian theocracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is that iranians were more religious under the pro-western "decadent" shah of iran. because it was subversive to be religious. now, after the 1979 revolution, in a theocracy, where religion is obligatory, young people are less religious in iran. it's a theocracy! (slasps forehead). young people in iran are less religious today than they are in say, turkey, right next door, which is a secular government
this should teach something the current crop of violently militant religious fundamentalists who wish to link religion and government throughout the muslim world: religion and government don't mix. i don't care what your sharia law says about that, this fact is something no religious-political text can overcome: you can't impose religious passion
religious passion is something that grows organically, from within. but when you try to enforce religion, you only cause people's passions to unite against religion
imagine that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That logic can be applied both ways. Imagine right now, on Tehrandot.org:
"I heard on Al Jazeera last week, from an American protesting in Washington, that there are a large contingent of the population is is pro-peace, and who are looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?"
I'm looking at this from an outsiders perspective, but it seems to me that in both countries (United States and Iran), there are a reasonable, sane majority of people just trying to get on with their lives, who are being pushed into war by a vocal, fundamentalist minority.
Rational people on both side look out, and see only the extremists. Joe Washington doesn't want war but everything he hears regarding Iran is negative - they want to wipe out Israel, they want to build nukes. Joe Tehran has a generally pacifist outlook too, but when he reads about America, it is usually because of attrocities like Abu Ghraib, or some other massacre. Time passes, and the crazies on both sides get louder and louder, while the rational people - constantly exposed to this propaganda, start to feel that even though they want peace, the "other side" is giving them no choice but to go to war.
I guess, we reserve the harshest namecalling for ourselves and our friends...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yeah, that works. So, we'll see some guy with his grocery bags standing in front of a Russian or Chinese supplied tank, stopping the entire Iranian Army from running down protesters that "grew some balls".
Have we seen this before?
In an age where the government has much more firepower than the armed citizenry, its difficult for citizens to rise up like they did in 1776.
Back then, with the exception of a Navy, the people in the American Colonies were a lot more closely matched with the British. What they lacked, they were able to get through guerilla action. Hell, back then, even privately owned vessels were armed.
Modern tyrannies are better armed than the citizenry, even where the citizens are permitted to own firearms. Back then, a handfull of armed farmers could take over an artillary battary, and use it. Now, farmers might be able to knock a plane out of the sky. Or disable a tank, but, the average farmer, tribesman, stockbroker, pimp, is going to be hard pressed to come out on top when a division of tanks comes at him while jets providing support for the ground troops create a no-mans land where neighborhoods stood.
Yeah, your idea worked for the students in China.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
This is always the way it is; it is the douche bags in power that want a bigger piece of the pie.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
As I said in my post, in fact the key point of my post, something your pee brain was apparently unable to process, "Remove the beam from your own eye before worrying about the splinter in your neighbors eye".
Another quote from the Christian mythology: "Judge not lest you be judged"
Why is it that in this so-called 'Christian nation' that me and my athiest friends believe in Jesus' teaching more than the Christians?
"Why do you go so far out of your way..."
Wow, clicking on a link and posting a few sentences is "going so far out of [my] way? Figure it out, you are a deluded idiot.
What 'keeps me going' is idiots like you that have trashed this country Mr. Coward.
"failed regime?" - why, because your chimp in chief said so?
Heard it over NPR? That's some... uh.... alternative media source you have there. In other news, I've heard on NPR that Iraq had WMDs.
You seem to have taken the bait for another mass hysteria effort that is aiming for an invasion of a sovereign state. Here, have a cookie.
At your assertion that modern farmers might be able to knock a plane out of the sky. That must be some shotgun!
I suspect modern farmers could put a fair number of obstacles in the way of a tank regiment - ditches have always been a standard farm requirement and are good anti-tank defences. And maybe they could handle a section of troops with armoured A-Team combine harvesters. But I can't see them countering ground attack aircraft.
Unless those combine harvesters had Stingers?
The most persecuted are unable to grow balls.
No. No, "we" don't.
The United States of America has the highest incarceration rate per. capita. By a hell of a margin, too.
execute doesn't mean the same thing as incarcerate.
True. How nice that the United States at least waits until the person turns 18 before they execute them. Highly civilized. Pat yourself on the back.
Th US has to stop trying to be the world police. Why should Iran just expect the US to jump in? They should grow some balls and try standing up for themselves.
It sounds like you have the mistaken notion that the US is some benevolent "peace keeper". However the vast majority of the time (every single US involvement except for serbia) was unwanted intervention to support either US ideology or US economy. standing up for themselves... I'm sure most nations would prefer if the US just went back to their pre WWII isolationism. How about the US grows some brains and stop jumping in where they aren't needed (Iraq) and actually interfere where they could help (Durfur).
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Better late than never...Actually, that one is true.
"As I said in my post, in fact the key point of my post, something your pee brain was apparently unable to process, "Remove the beam from your own eye before worrying about the splinter in your neighbors eye"."
And what exactly does using a veiled claim of hypocrisy have to do with your totally inaccurate comparisons? Your attempt at using christianity against christians only works if the comparisons are valid, and since they aren't (which you conveniently failed to admit despite the fact that I proved it in front of your eyes) your statement is just so much hot air. And by the way, it's "pea brain", which you'd know if you didn't have one.
I suppose it never occurred to you that when people read what you wrote, those smart enough to see through it realize you're full of shit, and there's nothing you can do about it.
See you're so eager to toss about comparisons that fail that you don't realize you destroy what little credibility you have in doing so. In other words genius, you do my job for me.
Thanks for that, you made it easy.
And the way you attacked when challenged? Classic liberal tactics, done when you know you're wrong and have to hide it. Thanks for admitting that too.
So by replying not only did you make things worse by confirming your lack of intellectual capability, you proved my point in black and white.
Thanks for that too.
I heard on NPR last week, from an Iranian who had returned from visiting family, that there is a large contingent of the population that is pro-American and is looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?
Because their government, as awful as it is, stands between them and the enemies of their people. It just so happens that they know for a fact that the US and its imperialist buddy the UK have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to be enemies of the people of Iran:In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000.
[...]
With more than 100,000 Iranian victims[73] of Iraq's chemical weapons during the eight-year war, Iran is the world's second-most afflicted country by weapons of mass destruction-- second only to Japan. The total Iranian casualties of the war were estimated to be anywhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000. Almost all relevant international agencies have confirmed that Saddam engaged in chemical warfare to blunt Iranian human wave attacks; these agencies unanimously confirmed that Iran never used chemical weapons during the war
Donald Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein on 19 December - 20 December 1983. Rumsfeld visited again on 24 March 1984; the same day the UN released a report that Iraq had used mustard gas and tabun nerve agent against Iranian troops.
You can't take the sky from me...
It's quite simple, when our democran-republicrat government sees some shit, their going to take that shit. And there isn't a whole hell of a lot we the citizens or anybody else in the rest of the world for that matter can really do about it. This great country that was founded on such high minded principles as freedom, equality, and mutual prosperity (more or less imperfectly, see slavery, lack of women's suffrage, et al) has been hijacked by an absolutely bizarre cadre of megalomaniacal wannabe despots. Money is the name of the game here and nobody gives a shit. You assert that America needs to grow some brains (whatever that is supposed to mean). That's funny, you should have sense enough to realize that brains isn't the problem. Being too smart for our own good is actually partly what got us into this situation. The average American couldn't give a shit less about Iraq or Saddam or much else over there. What matters is one thing, how much is the price of a gallon of gas at the station down the street today. Oh, it's pushing three bucks? What the fuck? What people here really need to do is learn to pay some attention. Okay, I'm rambling. But, that's offensive insulting peoples' intelligence that you don't even know. Americans aren't any less smart than any other group in the world and collectively have made a lot of achievements. Guess where this website your reading was dreamed up, for example.
They should remain persecuted: women's rights is bad for men.
http://mikeeusa.blogspot.com/
I hope women's rights dissapears from the entire world and is replaced by Men's liberties.
In a "recent" post, I included a link to a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's not even posted to the blog - it's just a link.
Well, hot damn! I start getting hits from all over the world, especially Asia. And what are they for? You got it - they're lookin' for hunky body builder pictures! And the first one was a Google hit from Alborz in Khuzestan, Iran looking for pictures of weight lifters.
I actually have a (different) post on the blog that mentions a town in Iran by name (Masshad, Iran). How many Iranians stumbled on that post? Zero!
Looks like the Iranian government is right - their pervy little citizens just use Google to find hot pics of buff studs.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, how else are we going to find that picture of Vanessa Hudgens... um, for "research"!
Gee... all the news outlets were reporting that Iraq had WMDs... I believe they got their information from the US Government...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
There's a difference. US doesn't hang people off cranes in downtown (leaving them there for a week so nobody misses it) or force them to drink their urine if they didn't dress according to Sharia code or chop off their hands for theft. I don't support the death penalty at all (anywhere) but the fact US does it doesn't mean I am going to stop criticizing Iran (or Saudi Arabia). And again, US != Iran, as bad as the death penalty is. There's no comparison.
filtering software, tracking software, spying software. all of these wonderful things were probably installed into the route from google to iran. fun fun!
One branch of the government baned and cut off all access to Google.
All other branches of government were suddenly unable to use the WWW/Google as a research too.
Original branch of the government turns Google access back on.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Yeah, Iranians want the US to invade them, nice meme.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
...which made that particular bit (and many more) of information up. Why should I believe them about Iran?
http://inhisserviceweb.com/prison_statistics.htm
"As a percentage of total population, Rwanda has the largest prison population"
Sucks to be wrong doesn't it? Now ask yourself why you never bothered to question the statistics.
Right, because you WANT to believe them, so they're true to you regardless of their accuracy.
Look how many people posted the same thing, and did the same thing, probably because of people like you who heard something you thought was shocking about the US and wanted to repeat, but never bothered to check.
Not only are governments better equipped to crush revolts, we now have this great word to justify to the rest of the world that it was needed to nuke 2000 people, they were all "terrorists".
The Afghans beat Russia, as the Iraqis are beating America.
Deleted
Strangely, I never said anything about the Iranians wanting the United States to invade their country. I said that according to the report, many Iranians are "pro-American". They would rather have peaceful relations with the United States than the current nuclear brinksmanship that is being practiced by their government. I was just wondering: if that's the case, why aren't they taking bigger steps to do something about it?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"I'm sure most nations would prefer if the US just went back to their pre WWII isolationism"
OH RLY?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/06/world/main665329.shtml
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB117/index.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801640.html
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55a/008.html
Yes, they slashdot it. According to the myth, the Chinese search engine, which reconciles to the communist gov't, namely baidu.com, employs men to repeatedly query Google's search engine with forbidden items, e.g. 'Falunkon', 'Taiwan Independence' or 'the Tian'anmen Masssacre' (I think the myth really means that they hire men power to run some scripts that do these queries at the same time.) Then the Great Firewall of China will catch this pulse of queries (it is supposed to catch everything in the Internet traffic in Mainland China) and automatically redirect the all traffics to/from Google to somewhere like the /dev/null (using some adaptive artificial-intelligent self-rewriting distributed-computing perl-lisp-python-erlang script?) Then common lusers will find that 'Google is down' and turn to baidu.com (which is, forgive my politeness, pure bullshit. Baidu censors itself. If you search 'Falunkon' with Baidu, it will preprocess your query string in the dark and only do things permitted by the Firewall. Perhaps the Great Firewall API is sold to them with some discount?)
That's how Baidu mysteriously exploits (or utilizes) the passive mode of the Great Firewall. The Firewall has yet another mode of working: the active mode. Recently Wikipedia is blocked for unknown reasons. Conjecture goes that it is to prevent undesirable results during the 17th congress of the Communist Party. Even at the time Wikipedia hasn't been blocked, one day when I searched it for some infomation about metallugy it showed up an empty face. Then I know why. The result page contains infomation on the corruption of metals, and 'corruption' is an forbidden item on Wikipedia (it seems that the 'forbidden dictionary' of the Firewall is site-specific) because of the word's political sense.
Now I'm off the topic. I mean, perhaps Google is shashdotted in Iran, just like how they slashdot it in China. :-P
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
i don't think so
but you apparently do
if the world is ever to achieve peace, then every government in the world must be judged according to the same standards... sooner, rather than later, for the sake of peace
and when you begin to do that, and ONLY when you begin to do that, do you begin to move towards world peace. but if you continue to think of the west as somehow (ridiculously) "superior" to other parts of the world, then in your own mind you perpetuate the cycle of violence, by positing an "us" versus a "them"
no: i don't believe in that. i believe in all humanity being equal. and when you do that, yes, comparing london or paris or washington dc to tehran or dhaka or la paz is not only normal, it is also the only morally and intellectual defensible way you can look at the world
in a way, by saying what you just said above, you reveal a subtle form of racism/ ethnocentrism that is in fact the cause of the problems we see in this world. and so comparing the west to iran is NOT in any way bad, it is, in fact, a step forward in progress, in your mentality about how to think of the world, how to properly frame your worldview. you talk about falling standards. when i see london compared to tehran, i in fact see increasing standards
all world governments must be held accountable to the same standard. to hold the west in a special "superior" light is a subtle form of ethnocentrism/ racism, a vestige of colonialism in YOUR mind. it is a sort of condescension and patronization/ paternalism: the west is the "daddy" and the other parts of the world are "children" that can't be held to the same standard
bullshit
i, as an american, when i look to an iranian, see my equal, in rights AND responsibilies. in THIS way, i see the totalitarian theocracy in tehran as woefully inadequate, because the iranians, as my brothers and sisters, deserve better. but in a colonial mindset, other people in the west say we shouldn't be judging the iranian government
isn't that funny: the condemnation of tehran is an act of soldarity with universal human standards, and the call to lay off tehran by westerners is an act of ethnocentrism/ colonialism/ racism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but you ar enever going to get rid of religion. so you have to get used to deal with it, and stop thinking it can ever be cut out of the equatio nsomehow. it can't. it's part of human nature. if you magically got rid of all of the abrahamic faiths: judaism, christianity, islam, ie, the world faiths with the most venom and potential for venom, all that would happen is other religions would magically spring into being to fill the psychological and sociological void. perhaps worse cults/ faiths
so make peace with religion, and wage war instead on the fundamentalist evil wings of these faiths, where all the trouble is located. the vast moderate middle of these faiths are usually good decent people. no need to question their religion. but every reason, indeed, to question, and kill, the fundamentalists of these religions
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Americans aren't any less smart than any other group in the world and collectively have made a lot of achievements. - AC
Well, most studies say Americans are the least informed/knowledgeable/intelligent of all western nations. Objectively America is less smart.
Because their suicide bombers have been sent to Iraq.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
If you read the GP:
The assumption is that a popular revolt can stand against the government without outside help.
As for the "Iraqis" (most are foreigners), Iran and Syria are supplying them with sophisticated equipment. As for the Afghanis during the Soviet occupation, the U.S. was supplying them.
Do try to pay attention to the course of the conversation. The GP had posted that he thought the masses should "grow some balls" and do it themselves without help from a "world policeman".
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
So you're saying that it sucks to be a women there, because the guys prefer camels? Strange indeed.
which is totally what she said
If you don't see the difference between executing some 17 year old that raped and murdered a family and executing teenagers for drinking, disturbing the peace and theft after you give them 228 lashes you a sick puppy.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
guess what? they did! and guess who the party poopers were? the Americans! surprised? read this if you want to learn a little history (warning: this is way too much information if you still cannot find your country on the map) in 50s the Iranians elected their prime minister: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosadegh. But since in any democratic country people demand their share of natural resources (read oil), that conflicted with US and British's free access to other people's s***: the rest is history (from the article above): Operation Ajax: "On April 4, 1953, CIA director Dulles approved US$1 million to be used 'in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh.' Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh... Funded with money from the U.S. CIA and the British MI6, the pro-monarchy forces, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mossadegh's cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi, gained the upper hand on 19 August 1953 (28 Mordad). The military intervened as the pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister's official residence." This is a well-documented historical example with all the CIA documents published now. There are lots of conspiracy about the influence of the US and UK in the more recent events such as the 70's revolution. What is very amusing is that you guys screw up the region, then complain about how the people don't have balls to do anything about it, and then when the time is right you move in to liberate (read kill) them all.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
TBH it would be better if they were pro-west then pro-American. The problem with them being Pro-American is that when the USA bombs the hell out of them in the next few months the hard-liners will get more people supporting them.
OH RLY?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/06/world/main665329.shtml
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB117/index.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801640.html
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55a/008.html and how exactly does that prove most nations would not prefer if the US Went back to isolationist? You provided links on small amounts of criticism about US aid. Although it's admirable the US would like to donate wealth you don't seem to notice how political their "donations" are. US aid comes with strings. Political and Economic. Egypt has aligned itself with the US partly out of desperate dependence on US food aid as it's pop is greater then it's agriculture could sustain comfortably. A large amount of the "famine" in Africa is causes bu food aid undermining the prices of local food making agriculture unprofitable or raises the local current carrying capacity beyond it's natural limit and thus when the food aid dries up you get a famine. Many despots are kept in power by simply controlling the flow of foreign aid. In general there is a lot of resentment against US interference, and most parties are aware that US gifts come with some dangerous strings.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm fine with that, but the rest of the world would suddenly be very upset if the US decided not to dabble in UN and NATO enforcement. The Europeans would be rather upset that they would have to suddenly come up with a lot more money and resources for these little soldier games.
I don't really care what the rest of the world thinks of the US, so my vote is to drop this world police idea. But people who actually get to make decisions do care it seems, and not for benevolent reasons like "spreading democracy".
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You must be mistaking Fox news for NPR. NPR is pretty liberal, and would never report that Iraq had WMD. NPR doesn't have commercials, so they don't need to worry about "offending" their main source of income, like many other commercial news sites do. Your point about the news causing mass hysteria may be valid, but NPR is hardly guilty of being "pro-war".
"But this one goes to 11!"
i see you subscribe to what the Bush admin has been saying.
MABASPLOOM!
Perhaps a lot of Iranians remember that the overthrow of the Shah, himself a vile, repugnant, murderous man, only lead to the installation of Khomeini, another vile, repugnant, murderous man. I imagine that many hope that their government will evolve towards a more free, open and democratic society.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
1. iran has been doing exactly what you say the west is doing, since 1979, with orders of magnitude more effort: drumming the constant war drum against the great satan of the west. so why don't you condemn that? do you know what intellectual honesty is? or is only the west capable of being criticized? which brings us to #2:
2. it is ethnocentric to only criticize the west. that the west is only party that can be held responsible. this is soft racism: those poor iranians, they can't be held to the same standards as us. no, that's bullshit: iranians have the same rights and responsibilities that i do
you either have one standard for judging all governments of the world against, or you have no moral and no intellectual valid basis for criticism at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In this case I think the beam is in Iran's eye. Iran is actually pretty good by Middle Eastern standards, but to compare its human rights with an industrialized Western country is still pretty laughable. The U.S. is far from a paradise. But compared to a country that still follows Sharia, we're in pretty good shape.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Well if the Bush administration is acknowledging that difference I guess I am. Are you saying there isn't a difference?
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
"Iran should stop executing children"
Bad, but we try an increasing number of childern as adults, and states keep lowering the age at which children can be tried as adults. There is no bullshit like this in the US, where a 16 year old girl is executed on "vague charges of un-Islamic behaviour." That is why people are so abhorred by Iran's executions.
A gang of 16 year olds who beat a homeless guy to death is a different animal than a 16 year old girl who is raped but doesn't have 4 male witnesses to testify on her behalf. So let's not equate all "child" executions. "Iran hangs three in south-west"
We are in good company here, not only do we execute plenty of people, but don't we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world? I don't know how you leapt from hanging in Iran to "incarceration rate" in the US. This page, though not about Iran specifically, says the highest execution rates in the world are in China, Iran, Pakistan, and Iraq. Do you see the US in that list?
In any case, like I said above, it's not the fact that people are being executed (oh noes) but WHAT they are executed for. Plenty of people in the US feel that a guy who rapes and murders children ought to be executed. I'm not saying every execution is that clear-cut, but I *am* saying that's the side of the spectrum the US is on. In Iran, you get executed for being a girl who was raped, criticizing Islam, etc. Do you see how that is different from the US? "Western countries on Thursday voiced concern at the rising number of executions in Iran"
Didn't Bush and Texas execute a horrific number in his term as governer?
Most of the rest of the statements on this site are about public hangings. At least they have the honesty to execute people in public, in this country we hide from our executions, so people never really 'know' in a gut sense what they are paying for. Yeah they're so HONEST, that's really great. Oh, and do they give a crap about making executions more humane by not causing the person to have undue suffering? I guess they're too honest for that too! Somehow I'm reminded of Mark Antony. To quote Jesus:(approx.)
"Remove the beam from your own eye before you worry about the splinter in your neighbors eye" That's a fair approximation. Do you know what the words "beam" and "splinter" mean? That is referring to when you have a HUGE problem but you ignore it and focus on your neighbor's minor problem. So do you think the judicial system in the US is, say, 10 times worse than in Iran? If so, you've been drinking too much of the communion wine.
"Th US has to stop trying to be the world police." Well, one of us has to and since none of you self-serving pricks want the job, the US is stuck with it. Nevermind we've been doing it and paying for it since the 1940's anyway. The rest of you have a lot of nerve since without the US most of you would be saying "hiel Hitler" or "comrade" by now. That's besides paying for the very standard of living you now enjoy. Now that we are hurting from helping everyone else, its nice to know that our "friends" have such short memories. That goes for you too South America.(I've been hearing alot of negative shit from your direction) Without the US forgiving alot of your loans that kept you from collapsing, besides other benign policies(immigration for one), you wouldn't be enjoying your current economic prosperity.
Unblocked after Iran's GDP fell 50% in a matter of minutes.
This is a bit off topic, but every night at 8:30pm I loose access to Google. My provider is Comcast. I've tested it on many computers. I've also used a wireless to check it out on my neighbors internet access and it is only my network at 8:30pm that is locked out. I can access every other thing without issue.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
"You provided links on small amounts of criticism about US aid."
No, actually I didn't. Which you would have known had you read all of the links. But you didn't, which that statement proves.
"In general there is a lot of resentment against US interference"
Until they need something from us. Which I demonstrated perfectly, and which you completely failed to grasp or refute.
>Because [Iran] their suicide bombers have been sent to Iraq.
Prove it.
Iranians (despite hardships) are better off than most of the region, including economics.
Iran is hardly the breeding ground for suicide bombers that Iraq is.
Iraqi's refer to most suicide bombers as "Arabs", because most come from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Kuwait (non-Arab Pakistan weighs in heavy here).
That's not to give Iran a clean bill of health, but all this linking of Iran to Iraq's problems smells like war-drums (again) to me.
The Iraqi people have already elected a government that has close ties to Iran (that's the real under-reported story here.. Ultimately what's keeping the USA *in* Iraq isn't the instability -- it's the neocon terror of Iraq and Iran becoming closer buddies. And all this is made possible by the neocon insistence that the US economy remain dependent on oil instead of diversifying).
Great article. Way to make a big deal out of nothing. I used to work for a university's IT department, and we'd accidentally block and delete stuff all the time. This entire thing is blown way out of proportion.
Sounds good to me. But then again, from an outsider's perspective, it could be just as likely that Joe Tehran wants Israel wiped out too. The problem with the outsider's perspective is that what Joe Tehran thinks actually has little bearing on how you deal with the overbearing crazy government that wants to wipe out entire populations.
"Why is it that in this so-called 'Christian nation' that me and my athiest friends believe in Jesus' teaching more than the Christians?"
You don't, you just use them as a tool when you think you can do so to make a point.
"Wow, clicking on a link and posting a few sentences is "going so far out of [my] way? Figure it out, you are a deluded idiot."
I think what he meant was, you went out of your way to construct arguments out of aether, when reality clearly contradicts you. And calling him an idiot certainly makes you seem reasonable and trustworthy...
"What 'keeps me going' is idiots like you that have trashed this country Mr. Coward."
And your desire for rational debate about it right? Or did you literally mean that you are kept going by the fact that people have trashed this country? What kind of sick individual would be kept going by the willful destruction of their own country, and how much worse is it when they are proud of it like you are?
is not itself intolerance
in fact, if you tolerate the intolerant, you are in fact working for the extension and deepening of intolerance
society needs a muscular response to these militant fundamentalist assholes. there is nothing that can be won by placating them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If we really cared about pacifying Iran, encouraging that groundswell would have been the way to go. I'm not sure what the demographics are today, but a few years back, I had heard it reported that the percentage of youngings to older folk had once again matched where it had been during the '79 revolution (like 50% 18 y/o). And like all children, they're more into fun than supporting a bunch of crusty old mullahs. Whenever you have such a disparity, revolution is easy. Children rebel against the most oppressive authority. In '79, that was our boy, the Shah. This time around, we could have easily worked it to our favor. That's if de-radicalizing the region was our goal. But there's less money to be made in the absence of conflict.
So we'll likely bomb the shit out of them, once again making us the authority to rebel against. Then we can point to the "terrorists" who'll spawn from this next campaign as our reason for never leaving the region. And since we can never leave, democrats and republicans will continue to fund our corporate welfare defense contractors, lest they be accused of "not supporting the troops." And once we proclaim further regional instability, we'll never be able to abandon our "ally", Israel, lest they nuke the shit out of the world's main oil supply, given their paranoia. And having constant doubt surround the world oil supply let's us all graciously accept whatever price the oil companies want to charge us, since we all know how much worse it can be. Regional instability is in the American government's interest, it's not a fuck up.
I guess they are using the same approach with IT as they did their nuclear program.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
cultures die in isolation. cultural protectionism leads to the death of culture
to cite an example: the japanese have fervently been "westernizing" for perhaps 2 centuries. but does this mean japanese culture doesn't exist? no. does it mean that japanese culture is less vital? no. does it mean that japanese culture is less distinct and recognizable? no. manga, j-horror, cosplay, etc.: japnese culture, by looking outward for inspiration, has only grown more powerful and more instantly unique and recognizable. so the japanese aren't running around in kimonos and with samurai swords. that means japanese culture has died? no: culture is always changing, always moving forward, always leaving things in the dust and in history. in fact, to look at culture as a set of static dusty museum pieces that never changes is to not really understand culture at all
and so, in the end, to "protect" culture from outside "decadent" influence, like in iran, is a sign of colossal weakness and complete lack of pride and confidence on the part of iran in its own culture. cultures thrive on cross pollination. when "protected", cultures die faster than they otherwise normally would
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
However consider this perspective - Israel is a long way away from them and is the problem is really Syria's. When it gets down to it nobody really cares a lot about the Palestinians in Iran either. You'll see that rhetoric about a country a long way away and selling a few old rockets your military doesn't want anymore becuase they cant hit anything to Hizbolla is as far as it goes. Meanwhile Al Jazeera and Google give the predominantly young population news about what is going on elsewhere which is going to make it difficult to run any sort of totalitarian state. The Taliban banned radios and TVs to help keep control - Iran for all it's faults in not a basket case like them and will not do that. Even American Basketball with some imported US players is big in Iran, countries like Australia hold trade shows there - the place is mellowing. The big fuss about Iran reminds me somewhat of Reagan trying to restart the cold war when it was really all over before he was elected.
Fellow AC, you mistake "smart" for well-informed. Mayhaps you're an American.
I'm john mccain and I approved this message
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it