Eygpt is known to have nasty jails for people who disagree with others on all sorts of things.
What is happening seems to be a revolution in the making. Either you win or you die, and the people (at least those involved enough to be specifically targeted by the government) probably know it.
The linked story talks about the reasons for the protest in Cairo (namely, wanting the current president of 29 years out, and wanting the 29-year "state of emergency" and corresponding suspension of rights to stop). The summary here just talks about the actions taken against the protesters, and the blocking of Twitter.
Have you been asleep?
A revolution is happening in Tunisia. Protests similar to the beginnings there have been reported from Algeria. People are setting themselves on fire to make a statement. The Egyptian regime has been trying to control unrest by capping food and oil prices for the last few weeks.
Is it really necessary to point out what the Egyptians are unhappy about? Isn't it obvious?
Hint: poverty, exploitation, dictatorship, greed, corruption, astronomical food prices, general lack of freedom... enough reasons already?
There's never a single reason for protests of this scale. A single-issue campaign probably also won't get the president's son and "heir to the throne" to flee the country.
Nobody of the Jewish faith is allowed to pray on the temple mount.
To quote the fount of all knowledge: Although freedom of access was enshrined in the law, as a security measure, the Israeli government currently enforce a ban on non-Muslim prayer on the site.
So it's apparently not the Palestinians who have a problem with Jews praying there.
And while Palestinian settlers can pick any valley they want to to build houses in and they don't even have to pay taxes on them, it is illegal for Jewish settlers to do the same on barren, rocky hilltops.
Citation please? The way I keep hearing that story seems to be quite the opposite. Jewish settlers are offered financial incentives (source, source), while the majority of Palestinian building permits are turned down (source).
A friend of mine visited the West Bank last summer. She worked at a small Palestinian farm which was denied electricity and running water. She saw families who lived in caves because their houses had been torn down and they weren't allowed to build new ones. The village she worked in was ~10km away from the next. What would normally be a 10 minute drive had been turned into a 1 hour journey because the separation wall conveniently deviated from the 1949 border, along which it was supposed to be built, to include a Jewish settlement.
Yeah, I totally see the Israelis being oppressed here...
Now that might be different if you're travelling first class. But, keeping the lack of flexibility in mind (because owning a car AND using public transportation is economic bullshit), public transportation becomes very, very expensive all of a sudden.
And that's why public transportation should be paid for by taxes and free to use.
Because what you're describing is commonly called murder, and is illegal under pretty much every law in the world, national and international (just as it should be)?
If you're really serious about this, your sig seems quite apt.
Spamhaus seems to be pretty quick in assuming that wikileaks.info is malicious.
Apparently the site is hosted by a Russian company known to host malware and phishing sites. But how does this prove anything? They might as well be ordinary customers of a webhoster who doesn't take sites down easily.
Somebody who won't take malware sites down probably won't bow to political pressure to take down a Wikileaks mirror - or so they hope. "Outlaws" of whatever kind have a very reasonable interest in common: to evade prosecution and punishment. Whether you're stealing credit card numbers or publishing government/corporate secrets doesn't matter in this context.
Ahh, but you see - the context is your own. I'm certain that a few thousand people in New York on 9/11 certainly felt repressed for the short while they were alive after the plane hit the tower - one could even argue that their oppression is more significant than yours (after all death is pretty much the single biggest removal of civil rights one can think of). It was certainly injustice.
No doubt here.
Indeed, it isn't hard to find situations across the world where this happens - lets say if you were a non-Baathist in Iraq. There was some true injustice - so you were for that? After all you weren't even neutral, you were *against* the action to halt it so that means you were siding with the the Baathists. Or how about Darfur - didn't see people championing that one - you like those Africans getting killed and support it? I would call that situation "injustice" - MUCH more than anything happening with Wikileaks.
Yes, Saddam wasn't exactly a nice guy. I wonder who put him in power and armed him to the teeth... Had there been a revolution against him, I would have been very much in support of it. But waging war against a country because their ruler is an asshole isn't going to help anybody. Look at the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan) now. Change for the better can only ever come from within.
Same goes for various african warlords - who is funding them? Who profits? Certainly not the local population.
Let me guess, you thought it was wrong but that we should leave it alone? OK, I think the harassment of Wikileaks is wrong is too - if I campaign to leave it alone and let the govt do whatever it wants are you going to support me as a True Friend of Justice? Bet not. The primary difference is this is one *you* care about.
Lots of injustice out there like that - lots of it you only care enough to half shed a single tear and move on, much of it you oppose any measure to try and stop. Lots of it you get all nice and worked up over the "with us or against us" meme but more than willing to trot it out in defense of your own cause.
You seem to know a lot about what I care about and what I don't... Invading their country is usually not a terribly good way of helping people.
Note *none* of those cases were "terrorists" but pure injustice of the type feared our govt will come to (but not there yet).
Personally I find both sets to be laughable propaganda. Not sure which is sadder if you truly believe what you write or do not but think that it is persuasive.
Truth is somewhere in between - terrorist exist and there has to be some form of action against them and our govt is running amok and needs reeled in. Just because someone wants a line drawn someplace where I do not want it doesn't necessarily mean they are "against me", though I will have to say attitudes like yours are so. All they will do is swap one set of people trying to force me to do something with another and *that* is injustice.
Where did I deny the existence of terrorism? That would be silly. I don't like it either and would very much like to stop it. But I prefer eliminating the conditions which push people to be terrorists, which brings us back to injustice - social injustice.
I think you're missing the qualification "in situations of injustice". It all depends on the context:
"You're either with us or you're with the terrorists!!!!11" - laughable propaganda
"Hey, I'm being oppressed, help me! Stop saying you're neutral, you're either with me or you're with them!" - 100% correct (assuming the oppression is indeed taking place)
Vixie makes some good points about the rule of law and how DDOS attacks both by supporters and enemies of Wikilieaks are unjustified. Yet I can't help but wonder what the outcome would be if everyone just went back to business and let the courts settle everything out. Wouldn't this mean that Wikileaks is taken down for now, Assange's ass is ripped up in court for the next ten years, and even if he wins in the end (in the unlikely case he manages to afford a year-long court battle), Wikileaks will have utterly failed to reach its goals?
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
- Desmond Tutu
What's more likely, that these tech companies received National Security Letters and can't talk about them under threat of theft, caging or worse, or that these tech companies all just fell over and made up legally and technically bogus excuses because they're idiots?
If they had any kind of spine, then a National Security Letter telling them to take down Wikileaks would have, you know, leaked. I think there's a website for that...
If Amazon is subject to legal risks for hosting Wikileaks, then these laws should be repealed, on two grounds:
All Wikileaks does is expose lies and other unethical behaviour by people with way too much power. Assange should not be imprisoned, he should be awarded a medal.
If what Wikileaks does is indeed illegal, the government should get a court order to tell them to take it down. As long as Amazon complies, the cost to them should be negligible.
That said, it is far from clear that Wikileaks is illegal. If it were, Assange wouldn't be wanted for rape (at least not only - we can't know for certain if he's guilty of that), but for violating whatever law Wikileaks broke.
Are you really suggesting that denying service to minorities is an acceptable cost saving measure?
Is this a serious question? Businesses are interested in getting the biggest ROI and therefore cut services that aren't profitable.
Yes. Something can be entirely understandable and subject to harsh criticism at the same time. It's a sane business decision, but it's a bad thing for society as whole.
Everybody egoistically making the best decisions for themselves doesn't always lead to the best outcome for all of us.
Because even if it might not affect this particular sale, he (and the rest of the obscenely rich) has a vested interest in keeping the status quo for future transactions?
Slashdot Mirror
(undoing unintentional moderation)
Not anymore...
Well you can, but it won't be insanely fast for long!
Eygpt is known to have nasty jails for people who disagree with others on all sorts of things.
What is happening seems to be a revolution in the making. Either you win or you die, and the people (at least those involved enough to be specifically targeted by the government) probably know it.
No. Not all of us live in Egypt.
I don't live in Egypt either. But these recent events were very prominently featured in the media here, almost impossible to miss.
Maybe it wasn't so much of a hot topic in the US? Europe is quite a bit nearer, after all.
wonder if wikileaks was the proverbial flap of a butterfly's wing??
Actually no. Somebody made a slight typo when trying C-x M-c M-butterfly. It went unnoticed at first...
The linked story talks about the reasons for the protest in Cairo (namely, wanting the current president of 29 years out, and wanting the 29-year "state of emergency" and corresponding suspension of rights to stop). The summary here just talks about the actions taken against the protesters, and the blocking of Twitter.
Have you been asleep?
A revolution is happening in Tunisia. Protests similar to the beginnings there have been reported from Algeria. People are setting themselves on fire to make a statement. The Egyptian regime has been trying to control unrest by capping food and oil prices for the last few weeks.
Is it really necessary to point out what the Egyptians are unhappy about? Isn't it obvious?
Hint: poverty, exploitation, dictatorship, greed, corruption, astronomical food prices, general lack of freedom... enough reasons already?
There's never a single reason for protests of this scale. A single-issue campaign probably also won't get the president's son and "heir to the throne" to flee the country.
Nobody of the Jewish faith is allowed to pray on the temple mount.
To quote the fount of all knowledge: Although freedom of access was enshrined in the law, as a security measure, the Israeli government currently enforce a ban on non-Muslim prayer on the site.
So it's apparently not the Palestinians who have a problem with Jews praying there.
And while Palestinian settlers can pick any valley they want to to build houses in and they don't even have to pay taxes on them, it is illegal for Jewish settlers to do the same on barren, rocky hilltops.
Citation please? The way I keep hearing that story seems to be quite the opposite. Jewish settlers are offered financial incentives (source, source), while the majority of Palestinian building permits are turned down (source).
A friend of mine visited the West Bank last summer. She worked at a small Palestinian farm which was denied electricity and running water. She saw families who lived in caves because their houses had been torn down and they weren't allowed to build new ones. The village she worked in was ~10km away from the next. What would normally be a 10 minute drive had been turned into a 1 hour journey because the separation wall conveniently deviated from the 1949 border, along which it was supposed to be built, to include a Jewish settlement.
Yeah, I totally see the Israelis being oppressed here...
Now that might be different if you're travelling first class. But, keeping the lack of flexibility in mind (because owning a car AND using public transportation is economic bullshit), public transportation becomes very, very expensive all of a sudden.
And that's why public transportation should be paid for by taxes and free to use.
Troll? Seriously? Suggesting to cold-bloodedly murder people is "interesting", and I'm a troll for pointing out that the idea is insane?
The internet is a strange place indeed.
Because what you're describing is commonly called murder, and is illegal under pretty much every law in the world, national and international (just as it should be)?
If you're really serious about this, your sig seems quite apt.
Fucking racist!
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but seriously. Fuck off and die.
You send your clients links that open obnoxious porn and gambling popups, even circumventing some popup blockers (Firefox without adblock at least)?
This led to my revised idea:
1. File a business method patent on patent trolling.
I thought I was joking. The thing is, if I blogged about it (and I may have), I wonder if it's prior art?
Was that before April 2007? If not, Halliburton beat you to it:
Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party
Impairment testing is a win for everyone, except for the people that would be responsible for installing them.
Sounds like a good candidate for a law then, doesn't it?
They are using the same hosting provider. Nobody claimed they were the same people.
Spamhaus seems to be pretty quick in assuming that wikileaks.info is malicious.
Apparently the site is hosted by a Russian company known to host malware and phishing sites. But how does this prove anything? They might as well be ordinary customers of a webhoster who doesn't take sites down easily.
Somebody who won't take malware sites down probably won't bow to political pressure to take down a Wikileaks mirror - or so they hope. "Outlaws" of whatever kind have a very reasonable interest in common: to evade prosecution and punishment. Whether you're stealing credit card numbers or publishing government/corporate secrets doesn't matter in this context.
They're just paying out dividends to their investors!
Ahh, but you see - the context is your own. I'm certain that a few thousand people in New York on 9/11 certainly felt repressed for the short while they were alive after the plane hit the tower - one could even argue that their oppression is more significant than yours (after all death is pretty much the single biggest removal of civil rights one can think of). It was certainly injustice.
No doubt here.
Indeed, it isn't hard to find situations across the world where this happens - lets say if you were a non-Baathist in Iraq. There was some true injustice - so you were for that? After all you weren't even neutral, you were *against* the action to halt it so that means you were siding with the the Baathists. Or how about Darfur - didn't see people championing that one - you like those Africans getting killed and support it? I would call that situation "injustice" - MUCH more than anything happening with Wikileaks.
Yes, Saddam wasn't exactly a nice guy. I wonder who put him in power and armed him to the teeth... Had there been a revolution against him, I would have been very much in support of it. But waging war against a country because their ruler is an asshole isn't going to help anybody. Look at the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan) now. Change for the better can only ever come from within.
Same goes for various african warlords - who is funding them? Who profits? Certainly not the local population.
Let me guess, you thought it was wrong but that we should leave it alone? OK, I think the harassment of Wikileaks is wrong is too - if I campaign to leave it alone and let the govt do whatever it wants are you going to support me as a True Friend of Justice? Bet not. The primary difference is this is one *you* care about.
Lots of injustice out there like that - lots of it you only care enough to half shed a single tear and move on, much of it you oppose any measure to try and stop. Lots of it you get all nice and worked up over the "with us or against us" meme but more than willing to trot it out in defense of your own cause.
You seem to know a lot about what I care about and what I don't... Invading their country is usually not a terribly good way of helping people.
Note *none* of those cases were "terrorists" but pure injustice of the type feared our govt will come to (but not there yet).
Personally I find both sets to be laughable propaganda. Not sure which is sadder if you truly believe what you write or do not but think that it is persuasive.
Truth is somewhere in between - terrorist exist and there has to be some form of action against them and our govt is running amok and needs reeled in. Just because someone wants a line drawn someplace where I do not want it doesn't necessarily mean they are "against me", though I will have to say attitudes like yours are so. All they will do is swap one set of people trying to force me to do something with another and *that* is injustice.
Where did I deny the existence of terrorism? That would be silly. I don't like it either and would very much like to stop it. But I prefer eliminating the conditions which push people to be terrorists, which brings us back to injustice - social injustice.
I think you're missing the qualification "in situations of injustice". It all depends on the context:
"You're either with us or you're with the terrorists!!!!11" - laughable propaganda
"Hey, I'm being oppressed, help me! Stop saying you're neutral, you're either with me or you're with them!" - 100% correct (assuming the oppression is indeed taking place)
Vixie makes some good points about the rule of law and how DDOS attacks both by supporters and enemies of Wikilieaks are unjustified. Yet I can't help but wonder what the outcome would be if everyone just went back to business and let the courts settle everything out. Wouldn't this mean that Wikileaks is taken down for now, Assange's ass is ripped up in court for the next ten years, and even if he wins in the end (in the unlikely case he manages to afford a year-long court battle), Wikileaks will have utterly failed to reach its goals?
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
- Desmond Tutu
What's more likely, that these tech companies received National Security Letters and can't talk about them under threat of theft, caging or worse, or that these tech companies all just fell over and made up legally and technically bogus excuses because they're idiots?
If they had any kind of spine, then a National Security Letter telling them to take down Wikileaks would have, you know, leaked. I think there's a website for that...
If Amazon is subject to legal risks for hosting Wikileaks, then these laws should be repealed, on two grounds:
That said, it is far from clear that Wikileaks is illegal. If it were, Assange wouldn't be wanted for rape (at least not only - we can't know for certain if he's guilty of that), but for violating whatever law Wikileaks broke.
Are you really suggesting that denying service to minorities is an acceptable cost saving measure?
Is this a serious question? Businesses are interested in getting the biggest ROI and therefore cut services that aren't profitable.
Yes. Something can be entirely understandable and subject to harsh criticism at the same time. It's a sane business decision, but it's a bad thing for society as whole.
Everybody egoistically making the best decisions for themselves doesn't always lead to the best outcome for all of us.
Because even if it might not affect this particular sale, he (and the rest of the obscenely rich) has a vested interest in keeping the status quo for future transactions?
=> != >=
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