Slashdot Mirror
Russian Police Seize Kasparov
An anonymous reader writes "Russian police seized Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion, for staging a political rally against Vladimir Putin. IBM's Deep Blue computer was the first to beat a world champion when it defeated Kasparov, who is one of the strongest players in history." He's also been a giant critic of the Russian administration which is increasingly restricting free speech.
In Soviet Russia, they sieze dissidents. What, you were expecting a joke? 'Cuz this isn't funny.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Surely a story about the greatest chessplayer of all time, and a key campaigner for civil liberties in Soviet Russia counts as "news for nerds" without some Deep Blue window-dressing. Do we really need to fake-tag this story as being about supercomputers to get it here?
Who tagged this "Stern but fair"? Please explain how this is "fair" and not just more of Putin's power grab?
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
If the transition had been a little milder than it was then the crime bosses in Russia would not have been able to grab as much as they did. The last thing the new 'vlasti' want is to have their playground taken away from them. This is going to be an extremely tense time for Russia.
MP3 Search Engine
Actually this might benefit Kasparov's cause. He's a respected person both in Russia and abroad, and a move like this could provoke a stronger protest against Putin. I trust Kasparov has calculated this 6 moves ahead :)
1's and 0's should be free.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I hope that you are right, but if the world hasn't been able to do anything about Russia's horrible crimes against the people of Chechnya, how big are the chances that Kasparov can make a difference? Also, don't forget that Putin's approval ratings are pretty high even if you disbelieve the official statistics from the Kremlin, i.e. the Russians themselves might not even care about this and that is what's really required here. You can't force changes like this from the outside (are you going to sanction Russia? Use military force? Hardly), it has to come from the people of Russia.
Move to Saudi Arabia then you too-scared-to-live-in-a-democracy little pussy. I can't stand Clinton either, but I'm not so pussyfied that I'd wanter her arrested for scaring me.
If you can't handle freedom, go somewhere where you can have big-daddy-authority-figure hold your hand and change your diaper. Scared little bitch.
Do YOU have a problem with THAT, you anonymous little shitstain?
Yeah, damn slashdot for being so against freedom of speech that they removed your post. I'm outraged! I REALLY wanted to reply and tell you how right you are, but now I just CAN'T because slashdot has gone and censored you. ...
Show me the censorship. That's all I ask. Back that childish whining up with some bruises from the abuse you've taken. Oh, that's right, slashdot doesn't censor.... ever. That's right, I said it, EVER, as in being an absolute (I'm the kind of guy that likes to tack qualifiers and quantifiers on everything). That's why it's one of the few places I actually post instead of lurk. (I know, it looks like I'm saying I troll alot, I don't, I troll alittle, (and almost exclusively non-anon) I'm just principled about free speech like that)
As far as your list of topics goes, you're not being censored, you're RIGHTLY being pushed to the back of the room by the CROWD (not the site) for being a... well... what IS the right-wing equivalent of a tin foil hat wearer? Oh yes, a Kool-Aid drinker. Very few of the little factoids you present have any basis in real-life at ALL, and those that do have a tenuous connection to reality at best.
To sum up: You're not being censored for being 'edgy', you're being ignored for being ridiculous. You don't get to be a martyr for that.
I spent a couple of years living in Russia back in the Yeltsin years of the mid 90's. Overall Russians are extremely friendly and hospitable, but they have a long sad history of instituting governments that are in effect a legitimized mafia. From the 10th through the 19th centuries the rule of the Tsars were essentially a gang of thugs with pretensions of royalty. The better part of the 20th century they switched to a government that was another gang of thugs with pretense of communism. And now they have switched to a new band of thugs with pretensions of democracy. (Actually this is still the same band of thugs as the communist ones, they just switched pretensions). It seems that Putin is slowly dropping any pretense of democracy.
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
3. It was an honest opinion, expressed in support of a guy doing things how Bush would like to, if he could.
I would add that Iran is clearly far more democratic than Russia is today. Russia is more like Iraq under Saddam, where elections occur but nobody has any possibility of being elected except Putin. Despite meddling in the elections by the Council of Guardians, there are actual and real political dynamics which exist in Iran today. No such real dynamics occur under Russia today.
The big difference is that, unlike Saddam, Putin actually does have weapons of mass destruction.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Similar to the upcoming US election results