Interesting. I've always imagined that the UN would likely never elect an American to the post, because of the fear of growing US control/influence. Do you think that Obama's popularity would overcome that?
Theoretically, I can see Obama in that role. Of course, I don't see the chance that an American would be elected to that post anytime in the foreseeable future, even one as popular abroad as Obama.
You're obviously not looking in the right places, or you are extremely picky, or your tastes in porn run to a very narrow, seldom-seen set of fetishes.
If it is the latter: "seldom-seen fetishes" good news! You have found an under-served area of the over-saturated porn market, and are in a position to make a fortune by developing and operating a site serving that particular segment. Congratulations, and good luck. Let me know if you are looking for a cameraman, and/or MySQL admin with some PHP experience.
Bad form to reply to my own post, I know. Sorry, but I wanted to clarify the last part of my reply. I realize that whether or not we work in academia or in the private sector, we all pay taxes and have expenses. I was trying to refer to taxes on the business, and the expense of running a business.
I hope that is better. Long day. Tired. Need beer.
"Plenty aware" sounds to me like "have a favorite conspiracy theory". A couple thoughts on that item:
- "We are unable to vote"? I vote every election, and my vote is counted. I rarely vote with the majority, but that's not the point. I can vote, and I do.
- I am not put off by a candidate's popularity abroad, nor are most of the Americans I speak with. A President with broad support abroad makes our lives much easier. However, it seems to me that Obama's appeal elsewhere is because he holds views more similar to people abroad than to people at home. My point is that regardless of his popularity abroad, it's his popularity here that is relevant. Further, there seems to be a lot of equally snarky sentiment, especially from European types, that Americans don't know what the hell we are doing, and should follow what the rest of the world thinks is best. We don't need someone who will make the rest of the world happy. We need someone who will do what is best for us, and represent our interests.
As for Sudan? Years from now, people all over the world will look back on this era with shame because the world did so little to stop the bloodshed of innocent civilians in Sudan's genocidal civil war, just like we failed with Rwanda years ago. China is quietly fueling the Sudanese war, and hardly anyone is saying a damn thing about it. I fear that most of the world really doesn't give a damn about Africa.
... the Chinese press would not attempt to provoke wars on an almost bi-annual basis the way the USA press has done. I don't think its possible to surpass that level of nefarious activity.
Hmm. Most of the US press I have read/heard/watched has been stridently anti-war pretty much since the war in Iraq started.
You haven't read those Tiananmen reports very closely. The unrest occurring outside the square was unrelated to the students.
From the first paragraph of document 30, referred to by Mr. Clark: "[name redacted] University student who spent the night of Jun 3-4 in Tiananmen Square described on June 20 events and deaths he had witnessed, including an early morning incident during which 11 students [emphasis mine] were crushed to death by a PLA tank at the intersection of Liubukou and Changanjie."
Students were certainly involved, and the PLA was hunting them down with live ammo over at least an hour:
"The students believed that when the troops came to take the square, they would fire rubber bullets. Consequently, many of the students in the first line of barricades on the east and west sides of Changanjie held up padded coats to protect themselves from the projectiles. However, the first lines of students fell after the troops opened fire. The student said he had also been convinced that rubber bullets would be used. He had a sickening feeling when he noticed the bullets striking sparks off the pavement near his feet. He said that he saw many students fall during the ensuing hour."
There is evidence that non-student protesters were involved, and that there was violence perpetrated against PLA soldiers. However, it is also noted that the violence was vastly one-sided against the students and other protesters. Also, it appears true that most of the slaughter happened on the streets just outside the square, rather than immediately in it. Quibbling over the exact location solves nothing and only obscures the real issue, which is that you called the massacre a myth, when in fact the estimates in those documents (quoted by the author you referenced), and by the Chinese Red Cross, indicate that likely upwards of 2000 people were killed, although the true numbers will never be known because of the Chinese cover-up.
Who am I supposed to believe: the nakedly state-run media (with national prestige on the line)
Are you joking? Certainly not.
or a surreptitious state-running media known for an unsurpassed bloodthirst?
The USA conglomerates and their media divisions not only promote wars abroad, but have wantonly fueled the explosion of the country's prison industry with hysteria and worse. Now one out of one hundred Americans is currently behind bars, with about 17% of the adult population having been put through the penal system. No other country comes close to those miserable statistics.
Okay, you lose me here with the conspiracy theory. First, your numbers are wrong. There is a prison population of ~2.3 million, with a national population of ~305 million. Your estimate is about 1 out of 100, which equals a little over 3 million. You are off by several hundred thousand people, or close to 40% of the real number. I didn't do the math on your other number, but I'm skeptical of it. Second, you seem to skip from unfounded "media... promote wars abroad" to "fueling... prison industry". Are you honestly blaming prisoners' incarceration on the media? Are you saying that the media causes people to commit crime? Would there be less crime if there were no media in the US? Does this include all the media, including Salon.com and Amy Goodman? Or do you make an exception for them?
I didn't compare the convention protests with Tiananmen Sq. I meant to compare them with the treatment of protesters outside the olympics.
So what? The USA govt, sponsored and largely run by corporate interests (of which media corporations are subsidiary) isn't any more credible.
I don't think any government's words should be taken at face value, but I also don't believe for a moment that the Chinese government is on par with the US government in credibility and transparency. there are shades of gray, and I see the US and China in much different areas of the spectrum. The fact is that the press, including foreign press, is more free to report things *here* than *there*. However, my point above was not whether the US government is more credible than the Chinese government. I'm glad we agree on the fact that there are legitimate reasons why people across the world, including in the US, have a right and a need for privacy, and that right is threatened by the tracing tools these governments seek.
The Tiananmen Square massacre is historical fact. If you want to dispute the particulars, such as how many died, where they died, etc., fine. I give greater weight to the Red Cross's casualty estimates than to the Chinese government. Gregory Clark does not seem impartial, nor does he seem to have fully read the US government documents he is quoting, since on the whole they contradict his core assertion, ie, that the massacre didn't happen. He seems to have cherry-picked the parts that suit him best, while ignoring other relevant content. He claims that they show that "They confirm that there was no massacre in the square", which is a cheap attempt at deception, since he then goes on to admit that much of the killing appears to have been just outside the square. He attempts to minimize the event by ignoring important parts of the story, such as at least one tank crushing protesters, and troops with fixed bayonets firing metal bullets directly into crowds of unarmed civilians, and then tries to diminish the importance of the event by comparing it to other atrocities, as if that made it somehow more acceptable.
I think that if he had confined his assertion to stating that the massacre as it happened and the massacre as the news media reported it appear to be different, he would be on more accurate.
I find it interesting that in arguing that the US govt is not trustworthy, you quote a source who himself quotes US govt documents, referring to them as "a source whose sober impartiality cannot possibly be doubted".
Have you paid attention to what's been done with protesters at the DNC and RNC events?
Some. I'll make no apologies or excuses for heavy-handed police action, whether it is here or over there, but the difference between the RNC / DNC protests and Tiananmen Square is mind-boggling. This article talks about Amy Goodman's arrest, and I think makes an interesting point about journalists, the events they cover, and the law. I have read that most protesters were peaceful, and were left alone by police. The tear gas didn't come out and the arrests didn't happen until some (a very small minority) protesters got violent and started trashing property. It appears that Amy got caught up in that. As for the warrantess poo preemption, I don't know about that incident. However, before getting up in arms about the lack of warrants, I have to ask did the event meet these requirements? "Reasonable grounds" and "exigent circumstances" seem to be the key.
To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.
Hmm. I apologize if anything I've said is off the mark. I suppose "sentenced" would have been more accurate than "sent", since apparently they were set free after initially being sentenced to camp.
- How many requests for permission to protest were made? My latest sources say about 77.
- Of those, how many were granted permission to protest during the Games?
- Of those, how many actually protested during the Games?
- Learning Chinese would be great, but is more than I can do right now. What reliable and trustworthy (ie, non-government related) sources of information are there for an English-speaker like myself?
To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.
AFAIK, flash memory often (I'm unsure of the specifics in the case of the iPhone) uses a "wear-leveling" technique that makes it difficult to forensically scrub off unwanted data.
Okay, so what about a country like China that makes it a crime to be a dissident? *
Make no mistake, this is a bad, bad thing.
[setenv rant=ON]
* For example, those two old ladies that were sent to "re-education camp" during the Olympics because they had the temerity to go through the official application process required to use the official protest area set aside by the Chinese government for the specific purpose of allowing peaceful, nondisruptive demonstrations. They only made that area available to satisfy international concerns, (ie, to give the IOC a fig leaf to hide behind on rights issues), and then used it as a trap to catch any of their own citizens that might be lulled into thinking it was safe to speak.
China does not give a dusty rat turd about rights (of their own citizens, or anyone else's), as clearly demonstrated by their willingness to disingenuously double back on their promise of allowing protests. They gambled that the rest of the world would stand by and let it happen, instead of rightfully shaming the Chinese government for their actions, and judging by the international response (practically nil), they were right.
[setenv rant=OFF]
I disagree. Many of their innovations look impressive, but upon examination, the underlying science, the "foundation", if you will, is weak, requiring extensive engineering after the fact to try to keep it stable.
My experiences are similar to the GP's. If I go into a store and expect not to be bullshitted, that is not being "self-entitled", you condescending ass. If sales help at BB doesn't know what they are talking about, they should shut up and get out of my way. Better yet, they should impose on their manager to get you properly trained before they misinform more customers.
How many product returns and how much user frustration results from idiocy like this? Apparently the GP did do his homework, because he knew modems better than the glorified idiot salesdweeb. However, if the GP hadn't know the difference, he would have been sold a bag full of overpriced crap useless for the purpose he had.
What are the odds you're wearing a blue shirt right now and posting from a computer at BB...
Knowing how to sell something at a technical level does NOT mean that you know how to service it. Granted, there are areas where presales technical knowledge will help in a postsales environment, but they really are two different areas of expertise, requiring different training and experience. Of course, that's why real gurus are is high demand... because they know something inside and out, and can explain it to others. Somehow, I don't think that rushing some PFYs through Vista indoctrination is going to yield a high-quality crop of "gurus".
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. I've always imagined that the UN would likely never elect an American to the post, because of the fear of growing US control/influence. Do you think that Obama's popularity would overcome that?
Theoretically, I can see Obama in that role. Of course, I don't see the chance that an American would be elected to that post anytime in the foreseeable future, even one as popular abroad as Obama.
I see. My bad. Pardonez moi, s'il vous plait.
What, doesn't everybody like that stuff?
Probably because of the adverse reaction most people would experience when wiping their genitals with electrically charged toilet paper.
American football, probably. No reason to cover a soccer or rugby field with cream cheese, that I can think of.
You're obviously not looking in the right places, or you are extremely picky, or your tastes in porn run to a very narrow, seldom-seen set of fetishes.
If it is the latter: "seldom-seen fetishes" good news! You have found an under-served area of the over-saturated porn market, and are in a position to make a fortune by developing and operating a site serving that particular segment. Congratulations, and good luck. Let me know if you are looking for a cameraman, and/or MySQL admin with some PHP experience.
Bad form to reply to my own post, I know. Sorry, but I wanted to clarify the last part of my reply. I realize that whether or not we work in academia or in the private sector, we all pay taxes and have expenses. I was trying to refer to taxes on the business, and the expense of running a business.
I hope that is better. Long day. Tired. Need beer.
Yes, but you don't spend your days trying to run a business, drum up sales in a down economy, and make enough after taxes and expenses to live on.
You're welcome. :P
"Plenty aware" sounds to me like "have a favorite conspiracy theory". A couple thoughts on that item:
- "We are unable to vote"? I vote every election, and my vote is counted. I rarely vote with the majority, but that's not the point. I can vote, and I do.
- I am not put off by a candidate's popularity abroad, nor are most of the Americans I speak with. A President with broad support abroad makes our lives much easier. However, it seems to me that Obama's appeal elsewhere is because he holds views more similar to people abroad than to people at home. My point is that regardless of his popularity abroad, it's his popularity here that is relevant. Further, there seems to be a lot of equally snarky sentiment, especially from European types, that Americans don't know what the hell we are doing, and should follow what the rest of the world thinks is best. We don't need someone who will make the rest of the world happy. We need someone who will do what is best for us, and represent our interests.
As for Sudan? Years from now, people all over the world will look back on this era with shame because the world did so little to stop the bloodshed of innocent civilians in Sudan's genocidal civil war, just like we failed with Rwanda years ago. China is quietly fueling the Sudanese war, and hardly anyone is saying a damn thing about it. I fear that most of the world really doesn't give a damn about Africa.
Maybe they should elect him President of the Rest of the World or something.
Then what do they use all those satellites for?
Hmm. Most of the US press I have read/heard/watched has been stridently anti-war pretty much since the war in Iraq started.
You haven't read those Tiananmen reports very closely. The unrest occurring outside the square was unrelated to the students.
From the first paragraph of document 30, referred to by Mr. Clark: "[name redacted] University student who spent the night of Jun 3-4 in Tiananmen Square described on June 20 events and deaths he had witnessed, including an early morning incident during which 11 students [emphasis mine] were crushed to death by a PLA tank at the intersection of Liubukou and Changanjie."
Students were certainly involved, and the PLA was hunting them down with live ammo over at least an hour:
"The students believed that when the troops came to take the square, they would fire rubber bullets. Consequently, many of the students in the first line of barricades on the east and west sides of Changanjie held up padded coats to protect themselves from the projectiles. However, the first lines of students fell after the troops opened fire. The student said he had also been convinced that rubber bullets would be used. He had a sickening feeling when he noticed the bullets striking sparks off the pavement near his feet. He said that he saw many students fall during the ensuing hour."
There is evidence that non-student protesters were involved, and that there was violence perpetrated against PLA soldiers. However, it is also noted that the violence was vastly one-sided against the students and other protesters. Also, it appears true that most of the slaughter happened on the streets just outside the square, rather than immediately in it. Quibbling over the exact location solves nothing and only obscures the real issue, which is that you called the massacre a myth, when in fact the estimates in those documents (quoted by the author you referenced), and by the Chinese Red Cross, indicate that likely upwards of 2000 people were killed, although the true numbers will never be known because of the Chinese cover-up.
Who am I supposed to believe: the nakedly state-run media (with national prestige on the line)
Are you joking? Certainly not.
or a surreptitious state-running media known for an unsurpassed bloodthirst?
The USA conglomerates and their media divisions not only promote wars abroad, but have wantonly fueled the explosion of the country's prison industry with hysteria and worse. Now one out of one hundred Americans is currently behind bars, with about 17% of the adult population having been put through the penal system. No other country comes close to those miserable statistics.
Okay, you lose me here with the conspiracy theory. First, your numbers are wrong. There is a prison population of ~2.3 million, with a national population of ~305 million. Your estimate is about 1 out of 100, which equals a little over 3 million. You are off by several hundred thousand people, or close to 40% of the real number. I didn't do the math on your other number, but I'm skeptical of it. Second, you seem to skip from unfounded "media ... promote wars abroad" to "fueling ... prison industry". Are you honestly blaming prisoners' incarceration on the media? Are you saying that the media causes people to commit crime? Would there be less crime if there were no media in the US? Does this include all the media, including Salon.com and Amy Goodman? Or do you make an exception for them?
I didn't compare the convention protests with Tiananmen Sq. I meant to compare them with the treatment of protesters outside the olympics.
So what? The USA govt, sponsored and largely run by corporate interests (of which media corporations are subsidiary) isn't any more credible.
I don't think any government's words should be taken at face value, but I also don't believe for a moment that the Chinese government is on par with the US government in credibility and transparency. there are shades of gray, and I see the US and China in much different areas of the spectrum. The fact is that the press, including foreign press, is more free to report things *here* than *there*. However, my point above was not whether the US government is more credible than the Chinese government. I'm glad we agree on the fact that there are legitimate reasons why people across the world, including in the US, have a right and a need for privacy, and that right is threatened by the tracing tools these governments seek.
Even the Tiananmen Square "Massacre" is a myth.
The Tiananmen Square massacre is historical fact. If you want to dispute the particulars, such as how many died, where they died, etc., fine. I give greater weight to the Red Cross's casualty estimates than to the Chinese government. Gregory Clark does not seem impartial, nor does he seem to have fully read the US government documents he is quoting, since on the whole they contradict his core assertion, ie, that the massacre didn't happen. He seems to have cherry-picked the parts that suit him best, while ignoring other relevant content. He claims that they show that "They confirm that there was no massacre in the square", which is a cheap attempt at deception, since he then goes on to admit that much of the killing appears to have been just outside the square. He attempts to minimize the event by ignoring important parts of the story, such as at least one tank crushing protesters, and troops with fixed bayonets firing metal bullets directly into crowds of unarmed civilians, and then tries to diminish the importance of the event by comparing it to other atrocities, as if that made it somehow more acceptable.
I think that if he had confined his assertion to stating that the massacre as it happened and the massacre as the news media reported it appear to be different, he would be on more accurate.
I find it interesting that in arguing that the US govt is not trustworthy, you quote a source who himself quotes US govt documents, referring to them as "a source whose sober impartiality cannot possibly be doubted".
Have you paid attention to what's been done with protesters at the DNC and RNC events?
Some. I'll make no apologies or excuses for heavy-handed police action, whether it is here or over there, but the difference between the RNC / DNC protests and Tiananmen Square is mind-boggling. This article talks about Amy Goodman's arrest, and I think makes an interesting point about journalists, the events they cover, and the law. I have read that most protesters were peaceful, and were left alone by police. The tear gas didn't come out and the arrests didn't happen until some (a very small minority) protesters got violent and started trashing property. It appears that Amy got caught up in that. As for the warrantess poo preemption, I don't know about that incident. However, before getting up in arms about the lack of warrants, I have to ask did the event meet these requirements? "Reasonable grounds" and "exigent circumstances" seem to be the key.
To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.
I can certainly agree with that.
Amen, brother.
Judging from the content of your post, I'd say you probably didn't waste too much time worrying about passing this "english" of which you speak.
Sorry, old chap, I don't think it would work that way. Not in China's best interest, you see.
Hmm. I apologize if anything I've said is off the mark. I suppose "sentenced" would have been more accurate than "sent", since apparently they were set free after initially being sentenced to camp.
I see. Is this the official Chinese description of what happened? I'm willing to admit that I might be less than fully informed, but I'm reluctant to give credibility to what the Chinese government says. Two elderly women could face a year of "reeducation through labor" because they applied for permits to demonstrate during the Olympics, according to one of the would-be protesters.
The Chinese government speaks not just though its state-controlled press, but through its actions as well, and their actions speak louder to me than their words. Members of the press from abroad have been intimidated and had pictures of protests confiscated by the Chinese government.
- How many requests for permission to protest were made? My latest sources say about 77.
- Of those, how many were granted permission to protest during the Games?
- Of those, how many actually protested during the Games?
- Learning Chinese would be great, but is more than I can do right now. What reliable and trustworthy (ie, non-government related) sources of information are there for an English-speaker like myself?
It seems that Beijing has gone out of its way to squash free speech, intimidate critics, and to imprison dissidents. Are all these sources willfully libeling China?
To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.
Maybe self-righteous trolls don't have a "right" to free speech, and ergo shouldn't be posting to /.?
AFAIK, flash memory often (I'm unsure of the specifics in the case of the iPhone) uses a "wear-leveling" technique that makes it difficult to forensically scrub off unwanted data.
Okay, so what about a country like China that makes it a crime to be a dissident? *
Make no mistake, this is a bad, bad thing.
[setenv rant=ON]
* For example, those two old ladies that were sent to "re-education camp" during the Olympics because they had the temerity to go through the official application process required to use the official protest area set aside by the Chinese government for the specific purpose of allowing peaceful, nondisruptive demonstrations. They only made that area available to satisfy international concerns, (ie, to give the IOC a fig leaf to hide behind on rights issues), and then used it as a trap to catch any of their own citizens that might be lulled into thinking it was safe to speak.
China does not give a dusty rat turd about rights (of their own citizens, or anyone else's), as clearly demonstrated by their willingness to disingenuously double back on their promise of allowing protests. They gambled that the rest of the world would stand by and let it happen, instead of rightfully shaming the Chinese government for their actions, and judging by the international response (practically nil), they were right.
[setenv rant=OFF]
I disagree. Many of their innovations look impressive, but upon examination, the underlying science, the "foundation", if you will, is weak, requiring extensive engineering after the fact to try to keep it stable.
Starting with subversives like you in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
My experiences are similar to the GP's. If I go into a store and expect not to be bullshitted, that is not being "self-entitled", you condescending ass. If sales help at BB doesn't know what they are talking about, they should shut up and get out of my way. Better yet, they should impose on their manager to get you properly trained before they misinform more customers.
...
How many product returns and how much user frustration results from idiocy like this? Apparently the GP did do his homework, because he knew modems better than the glorified idiot salesdweeb. However, if the GP hadn't know the difference, he would have been sold a bag full of overpriced crap useless for the purpose he had.
What are the odds you're wearing a blue shirt right now and posting from a computer at BB
Knowing how to sell something at a technical level does NOT mean that you know how to service it. Granted, there are areas where presales technical knowledge will help in a postsales environment, but they really are two different areas of expertise, requiring different training and experience. Of course, that's why real gurus are is high demand ... because they know something inside and out, and can explain it to others. Somehow, I don't think that rushing some PFYs through Vista indoctrination is going to yield a high-quality crop of "gurus".