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Iran Set To Block Access To Google
legolas writes "The official state online censorship body in Iran has reported that Google and Gmail are going to be blocked effective immediately, ostensibly in response to the contentious videos that YouTube is hosting. This comes as Iran is preparing the launch of their 'Halal' intranet to replace the current direct (albeit highly censored) access to the global Internet. While there have been several state-organized protests for the film 'Innocence Of Muslims' in Iran, the public in general doesn't seem bothered by it."
Trying to save this from a First Post Godwin,
Mr. H. is passe. That's not precisely how the next threat will manifest. The world is too networked for that. I don't have time to read my 1,000 pages for Citations Needed, but basically Mr. H. got as far as he did because of the specific places he was in geography-time.
Now, we might see another Charismatic Dangerous Leader, yes. But you can't go just marching along, not today. So the next Bad Guy will be more of a Loose Cannon that needs to be talked down Game Theory style, with VERY clever diplomacy.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
After Stuxnet Iran started buying up networking equipment like crazy to make their own version of the Great Chinese Firewall. Eventually they were going to segregate all outbound communications. Considering the amount of information people trust to Google and the fact that the US Government can access the information if they ask for it (Google has little choice but to comply) there is little reason not to filter their services out completely. Plus if users are forced to use Iranian Internet services the Iranian state can then access all personal user information regardless if it is encrypted en route or not.
Have you been to Iran? I was just there two months ago. The majority of the population hates their government, but they are too scared to do anything about it.
in the United States. Large swaths of the country are deeply religious, by which I mean some stripe of Christianity. They have grown increasingly suspicious (if not downright scornful) of scientists and educators who challenge their views and threaten to corrupt the views of their children. I suspect that many of these folks sincerely see unrestricted search engines and an uncensored internet as tools of the devil. How far would public opinion have to tip before *all* searches are "safe" searches, and the "sanitized" web becomes the norm?
It seems unthinkable. But when 46% of the U.S. population earnestly believes that humans were created in their present form within the last 10,000 years, you have to be open to what happens if that number goes to 56%, or 96%.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html
Koans and fables for the software engineer
The above jibber-jabber you replied to is siding with Iran even though he didn't say so.
By implying that a new "Hitler" could rise out of the West while all the signs are pointing towards the Middle East and the surrounding area - Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya.
Shutting out Google / YouTube is not the only thing Iran is doing.
Iran is also banning Female Students from taking courses in 77 subjects, including English Literature, Nuclear Science, Sociology, Philosophy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-22/iranian-women-banned-from-77-university-courses/4275764
It's a totally fucked up world under Islam and more often than not the "new Hitler" will come from a fucked up world, not from places like the West.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
ok... can we have your IPv4 addresses.
Every Iranian I've ever met has been erudite, intelligent, moderate and truly delightful.
This is consistent with my experience. I have the utmost respect for every Iranian I have personally gotten to know.
Then again, every Iranian I've ever met (a few dozen) took huge risks to escape the regime in Iran and request asylum in the U.S. Unless you have wide experience in Iranian cities and rural areas, the people we have met are more extreme than the general population, in much the same way that the steam that rises from a boiling pot is hotter than the water in the pot. I absolutely believe that in Iran, as in Russia, the masses do not believe the state propaganda being produced to keep a paranoid minority in power, but it would be a mistake to assume that the majority of people in Iran are like the ones who escaped. By definition, they're different because they didn't escape (for whatever reason).
It's also important to remember that being erudite, intelligent and moderate doesn't preclude one from being complicit with more radical ideas. About 15 years ago a relative in New York doing business with a factory in Pakistan asked me work with a technically-proficient relative of the owner of the factory to set up a modern communications channel to replace the expensive fax and telex method they'd been using for years. I was expecting difficulty in communicating concepts and file formats because I had no idea what kind of equipment they were using. As I talked with my counterpart in Pakistan, who happened to be a military officer, I was struck by how erudite, intelligent, moderate and practical he was. I liked the guy. We very quickly figured things out and saved both sides a lot of time and money. A year later, when Pakistan tested its first nuclear weapon, he was the military spokesperson quoted in all the English-language newspapers announcing the test. I am sure he was opposed to the test and the increased tensions with India that would result, but that didn't stop him from being used as the mouthpiece that spread fear around the world in the spring of 1998.
I'm no expert on the subject (I know everyone else is), but I seem to remember Hitler arose in a battered, lagging nation, suffering from years of retribution over WWI. And before the inevitable, "oh well our economy kinda stinks", you'll have to work pretty hard to convince me that the state of our nation's psyche is anywhere near postwar Germany.
Meanwhile, Gallup says Obama is in the lead, beating a contender that (all hyperbole aside) does not resemble a maniacal dictator with ambitions of taking over the world and breeding a race of aryans to rule for a thousand years. At worst he's an insensitive 2000's-era business mogul looking to enrich his somewhat-similar buddies. At best, he's a political panderer with the ideological spine of a wet noodle and little real prowess to back it up, just doing what looked like the next stop on his career path.
If you want to find a Hitler, I think you'd have to look somewhere pretty poor (not: I can't have the new iphone 5 for another 6 months), where once there was wealth, with a raging hard-on for the outside world. Then find the intelligent, convincing, hard core political leader that presents himself as a "true believer" fighting for his people.
I know we hear some pretty nasty stuff on TV sometimes, but the idea that we're nearing anything close to building a Fourth Reich in earnest seems really silly. Our hot-button issues sound like, "shouldn't gays have all the same marriage priviledges as straights?!" and "is capital gains tax too low?!" or "I think marijuana should be legal!" It all sounds like a far cry from, "are muslims really human beings, or sub-human creatures we should blame for 8% unemployment?"
I dunno... like I said, I'm no expert in geopolitics. That's just how it all looks to me.
Yes, this is clearly a problem of "rightest" depiction of the actions of Islamists.
Bounty on Salman Rushdie increased to $3.3 million - Iran will pursue makers of anti-Islam film: vice-presidenthor
Pakistani minister puts bounty on anti-Islam filmmaker's head
Egypt's president elect Mohammed Morsi says he will try to free Blind Sheikh
Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's president elect, on Friday appealed for the release of one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates, a call sure to alarm critics worried about the direction he will take the country
Interview with Father Zakaria Botros, 'Radical Islam's Bane' - An interview with the Coptic Orthodox Priest with a 60 million dollar bounty on his head from al Qaeda.
More: Michael Coren Interviews Father Zakaria Botros 'Radical Islam's Bane'
Allied Menace
"Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," said socialist Hugo Chávez during a visit to Tehran last November, celebrating his alliance with Islamist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Che Guevara's son Camilo, who also visited Tehran last year, declared that his father would have "supported the country in its current struggle against the United States." They followed in the footsteps of Fidel Castro, who in a 2001 visit told his hosts that "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." For his part, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez ("Carlos the Jackal") wrote in his book L'islam révolutionnaire ("Revolutionary Islam") that "only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the United States."
You want to live in a peaceful world, and al-Qaida and assorted Islamists want you to live in a Muslim world. I expect that neither of you will get your wish unless enough people prefer any peace, even the peace of the graveyard, or the "peace" of slavery, to the long term struggle to defense genuine peace a freedom.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It takes generations to remove hate from a culture, but it only takes a few years to generate it.
Assuming it ever really leaves. . .
The Full-Blown Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe
The New Anti-Semitism
Is Toulouse the Future of Europe?
If you dont think hate is being generated here in the USA by "news channel talk show hosts" or "radio talk show hosts", then you havent been paying attention.
The problem is bigger than you think.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell