Obama could offer congratulations to Ahamawhatever, thereby giving him the kiss of death. Jimmy Carter did to the Shah back in the 70s and it worked like a charm to discredit him among his people and pave the way for the Ayatollah.
Weblogs? Are we still talking about those? What is this, 2003? Honestly that's what I thought when I saw the article summary. MAKE.MONEY.FAST with your blog!
Well, I can see that got absolutely nowhere, what with the bitter, humorless reply. The point was that...ah hell I'm not writing that much. Go watch that one part of "A Few Good Men" again.
You're barking up the wrong tree: the question is, why would a trustworthy investigative journalist be going after this guy's identity in the first place! If anything, they should be teaming up to uncover police corruption all the way to the top!
My credit card records and gym memberships might limit the group of people to which I could belong - but come on, investgated by a crusading heroic journalist, like some sort of child molester?
It's rather cliche in Obama's America, but here's an essay which attempts to answer that.
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, which is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
Then there are the sheep that not only refuse to accept a certain inevitability of violence but go so far as to blame the existence of the wolf upon the sheepdog. In their minds and in their desperation to extend a sort of courtesy to the wolves, they believe that the wolves were actually sheep just like them BUT, were somehow forced to become wolves because of the sheepdog.
Anyway, enough obsolete 20th century American agricultural metaphors. I'm sure if someone rewrote this to say player-killers and roleplayers, it would be on the front page of boingboing (and slashdot) tomorrow morning.
Where did it go, exactly? Want to let the rest of us in on the secret? Maybe it's common knowledge to you and your little crowd, but come on, get your head out of the clouds.
PS in a list like that, you need semicolons instead of commas.
If you're an independent game producer, then call yourself that. Calling yourself an "indie" has little actual meaning and tons of cultural meaning. It's a word like "hyper" or "nexus" that, in some people's [small] minds, makes words next to it look better. It's like how menus in China always have English on them: it's not for native speakers to read, it's so the locals will look at the English and say, "ah, English - this restaurant is international and therefore better." The quality of the product is irrelevant.
And now, you're upset because a big corp came in and sat on your made-up word. Ha-ha! What, they changed its meaning? It didn't have any meaning in the first place, other than to make words next to it look better to easily-impressed insular twits. That's what the brouhaha is all about here - not that MS is going to have a new game channel, but "they stole my cool saying! All the other hipsters at Starbucks won't think I'm cool any more!"
Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization -- a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook "iPod liberalism," the idea that nyone who listens to rock 'n' roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran -- a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand -- but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn't speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.
First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization -- whether from the shah or Mousavi -- as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.
Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs -- who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this -- have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.
Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don't necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus
validating the sacrifices made in that war -- something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.
Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad's favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran -- something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn't win.
OK, you people have to figure out how things work under a Communist government. The higher-ups want to protect the country from H1N1, all the other Asian countries are doing it. Heat scanners are installed in all airports, with a masked nurse seated nearby filing her fingernails and ignoring the device. We've secured the country! But wait it seems H1N1 cases got through anyway. The higher-ups are furious, they were assured that heat detectors were deployed. Solution? Those shifty foreigners cheated our indigenously made infrared devices. Therefore, no punishment will be meted out as blame has been shifted. Someone always has to take the fall for mistakes, even if they were otherwise fully qualified as health director, head scientist, etc. History is full of officials who got sent to the gulag because they couldn't dodge the blame for something that didn't turn out perfectly.
Shanzhai? What does this have to do with shanzhai? Nothing whatsover! This is just typical Chinese government, doing what it does best, ruling by committee. Don't just call it shanzhai because it comes from China, they are private companies.
First, I'd like to say that I'm astounded that a non-story like this has made major front-page news all over the world. It's probably due to the horridly decayed state of journalism, combined with the fact that the kids are blonde. Seriously, this is the sort of thing you'd see to fill space on page D5 of the local city shopper.
Similar thing happened here a while back, the kids at one of the international schools had class photos taken. A few months later, one of the dads is browsing factory catalogs, and lo and behold it's a picture of his kid and a lot of her friends decorating the pages. Evidently, the Chinese administrators had given the pictures to the factory due to a guanxi relationship. None of them could understand why the parents were upset - they just used the pictures, no harm no foul. Why, did you want some money for it? Intellecutal property is a cultural concept, and people in China just don't understand why they shouldn't be able to copy something as long as nobody has been physically deprived.
I also "borrow" material from the internet for printing. Guess what, it's not front-page news. Everyone does it, and I'm sure I've published someone's vacation photo before. I try to use public domain images, but if they're not forthcoming then I've got a deadline to meet. Online repositories are a crapshoot, and my 300+ CDs of stock photos lack in entire categories - I've got three CDs of pictures of trucks and roads, and one photo of an airliner which I used a long time ago.
What is this "you blew it"? How could that possibly be said of the result of a democratic election? Oh, right - there's a right and wrong in elections, and we should look to our betters to know how to avoid mistakes in voting. Got it.
What a grand lad you are! We know that, once in a blue moon, one of you proles accidentally shits out something valuable. We scientists might name it after you!
If you stare at the sky mindlessly for years, you might find a shiny. We scientists might name it after you! PS good luck finding something: there are thousands of lottery winners every year, but only a few people who spot new celestial objects. In addition, having your misspelled name in page 1113 of a stellar catalog is a lot less exciting than most people would think.
Yeah well - the money is on our side this time!:) The good guys are winning, it's the conservatives who are getting trashed by this new force of NGOs and newspapers combined. I say, STFU about it and let it go where it may.;)
One reason: democracy, people electing a government to represent their interests.
Like most one-worlders, you neglect this small (to you) fact in favor of what's obviously supposed to happen. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.
huge number of programs on our entertainment programs Should be entertainment channels. Unlike some people, I don't have a professional editor checking my work.
Walking home, I ruminated on the number. Sixty-six thousand is the population of a small city Muncie, Ind., for one. Who and where was this invisible metropolis? What infrastructure was needed to create this city of ether? Anyone else struck by the open-eyed naivete in this? How does this guy even grow up in the United States and this is a mystery to him? It is the profound ignorance of men like him that is most troubling - and this one is a journalist, supposedly worldly! And this fool has the clout to get Microsoft's GM of datacenters to give him a guided tour of the Xbox facility. "Look, Tommy, here's where your packets mix with those of others" "Gee willikers thanks Mr. Manos!" Is this the level journalists are at? Tourists?
We have an almost inimical incuriosity when it comes to infrastructure. No, buddy, I think from the huge number of programs on our entertainment programs that most people find the subject highly interesting. It's just you and your journalist clique who have an incuriousity to anything not of your own small world. Please stop including me when you say "we".
Actually a lot of organized crime funds terrorism. I'm sure on your travels in SE Asia, you didn't see any so obviously it doesn't exist. If it seems absurd to you, then we're sorry and will try to let reality intrude less next time.
Slashdot Mirror
Obama could offer congratulations to Ahamawhatever, thereby giving him the kiss of death. Jimmy Carter did to the Shah back in the 70s and it worked like a charm to discredit him among his people and pave the way for the Ayatollah.
Weblogs? Are we still talking about those? What is this, 2003? Honestly that's what I thought when I saw the article summary. MAKE.MONEY.FAST with your blog!
Well, I can see that got absolutely nowhere, what with the bitter, humorless reply. The point was that...ah hell I'm not writing that much. Go watch that one part of "A Few Good Men" again.
My credit card records and gym memberships might limit the group of people to which I could belong - but come on, investgated by a crusading heroic journalist, like some sort of child molester?
I know Obama's America is supposed to be a different place, but I don't know if I'm prepared to go as far as "trust the IRS".
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, which is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
Then there are the sheep that not only refuse to accept a certain inevitability of violence but go so far as to blame the existence of the wolf upon the sheepdog. In their minds and in their desperation to extend a sort of courtesy to the wolves, they believe that the wolves were actually sheep just like them BUT, were somehow forced to become wolves because of the sheepdog.
Anyway, enough obsolete 20th century American agricultural metaphors. I'm sure if someone rewrote this to say player-killers and roleplayers, it would be on the front page of boingboing (and slashdot) tomorrow morning.
PS in a list like that, you need semicolons instead of commas.
And now, you're upset because a big corp came in and sat on your made-up word. Ha-ha! What, they changed its meaning? It didn't have any meaning in the first place, other than to make words next to it look better to easily-impressed insular twits. That's what the brouhaha is all about here - not that MS is going to have a new game channel, but "they stole my cool saying! All the other hipsters at Starbucks won't think I'm cool any more!"
PS masks won't protect you from H1N1, it is a virus that easily passes between the cloth fibers.
If what you say is true, then certainly a bright young man could make a fortune offering the exact services you describe.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand -- but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn't speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.
First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization -- whether from the shah or Mousavi -- as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.
Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs -- who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this -- have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.
Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don't necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war -- something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.
Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad's favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran -- something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn't win.
OK, you people have to figure out how things work under a Communist government. The higher-ups want to protect the country from H1N1, all the other Asian countries are doing it. Heat scanners are installed in all airports, with a masked nurse seated nearby filing her fingernails and ignoring the device. We've secured the country! But wait it seems H1N1 cases got through anyway. The higher-ups are furious, they were assured that heat detectors were deployed. Solution? Those shifty foreigners cheated our indigenously made infrared devices. Therefore, no punishment will be meted out as blame has been shifted. Someone always has to take the fall for mistakes, even if they were otherwise fully qualified as health director, head scientist, etc. History is full of officials who got sent to the gulag because they couldn't dodge the blame for something that didn't turn out perfectly.
Shanzhai? What does this have to do with shanzhai? Nothing whatsover! This is just typical Chinese government, doing what it does best, ruling by committee. Don't just call it shanzhai because it comes from China, they are private companies.
No. No, actually I haven't been to Burningman. But thanks for pointing it out to the rest of us, we all appreciate how utterly cooler you are.
I like to call myself a "working journalist".
Similar thing happened here a while back, the kids at one of the international schools had class photos taken. A few months later, one of the dads is browsing factory catalogs, and lo and behold it's a picture of his kid and a lot of her friends decorating the pages. Evidently, the Chinese administrators had given the pictures to the factory due to a guanxi relationship. None of them could understand why the parents were upset - they just used the pictures, no harm no foul. Why, did you want some money for it? Intellecutal property is a cultural concept, and people in China just don't understand why they shouldn't be able to copy something as long as nobody has been physically deprived.
I also "borrow" material from the internet for printing. Guess what, it's not front-page news. Everyone does it, and I'm sure I've published someone's vacation photo before. I try to use public domain images, but if they're not forthcoming then I've got a deadline to meet. Online repositories are a crapshoot, and my 300+ CDs of stock photos lack in entire categories - I've got three CDs of pictures of trucks and roads, and one photo of an airliner which I used a long time ago.
What is this "you blew it"? How could that possibly be said of the result of a democratic election? Oh, right - there's a right and wrong in elections, and we should look to our betters to know how to avoid mistakes in voting. Got it.
What a grand lad you are! We know that, once in a blue moon, one of you proles accidentally shits out something valuable. We scientists might name it after you!
If you stare at the sky mindlessly for years, you might find a shiny. We scientists might name it after you! PS good luck finding something: there are thousands of lottery winners every year, but only a few people who spot new celestial objects. In addition, having your misspelled name in page 1113 of a stellar catalog is a lot less exciting than most people would think.
In other news, holding a self-acknowleged Communist up to well-deserved ridicule does not equal a "red scare", whatever that means in 2009, anyway.
Yeah well - the money is on our side this time! :) The good guys are winning, it's the conservatives who are getting trashed by this new force of NGOs and newspapers combined. I say, STFU about it and let it go where it may. ;)
Like most one-worlders, you neglect this small (to you) fact in favor of what's obviously supposed to happen. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.
Oh, that's rich - the Communist criticizing others for being incompetent.
huge number of programs on our entertainment programs
Should be entertainment channels. Unlike some people, I don't have a professional editor checking my work.
Anyone else struck by the open-eyed naivete in this? How does this guy even grow up in the United States and this is a mystery to him? It is the profound ignorance of men like him that is most troubling - and this one is a journalist, supposedly worldly! And this fool has the clout to get Microsoft's GM of datacenters to give him a guided tour of the Xbox facility. "Look, Tommy, here's where your packets mix with those of others" "Gee willikers thanks Mr. Manos!" Is this the level journalists are at? Tourists?
We have an almost inimical incuriosity when it comes to infrastructure.
No, buddy, I think from the huge number of programs on our entertainment programs that most people find the subject highly interesting. It's just you and your journalist clique who have an incuriousity to anything not of your own small world. Please stop including me when you say "we".
Actually a lot of organized crime funds terrorism. I'm sure on your travels in SE Asia, you didn't see any so obviously it doesn't exist. If it seems absurd to you, then we're sorry and will try to let reality intrude less next time.