The problem, however, is that Apache has to redirect with a full URL, including host name. A detault Apache uses its own ServerName (which might be some wacky, irrelevant name) instead of the name that the client requested in the Host header. This could make http://www.your-site.com/images redirect to http://mybrandnewcomputer/images/ which might not be desired.
This behaviour can be changed by setting UseCanonicalName to Off instead of (the default) On. That might solve your problem.
I personally think that UseCanonicalName should be Off per default since it mainly causes confusion otherwise (and a user has to know about HTTP and/or logic for redirection and the process of constructing an URL for debugging this problem).
No, I didn't skip the torrent suggestion, nor did I attack it.
I just pointed out that your argument - "there are far better ways to send large files. HTTP isn't one of them." - didn't justify your FTP suggestion at all.
HTTP has the ability to resume as well. I have never had problem resuming HTTP download. Some web browsers might not offer you this possibility for downloading (but might use it itself when requesting images on a page that were only partially downloaded at last visit). But then again, these browsers might not offer you resume download on ftp as well.
Anonymous login still doesn't qualify as "a better way" regarding large files. It's quite irrelevant regarding large files and only introduces more overhead. Not that overhead matters much as when the transfer is underway, the situation is the same whether you use HTTP or FTP.
I really can't find ground for your statement that you should be "unable to resume in most cases". I honestly can't recall this being an issue. I often download and resume large files from different HTTP servers.
But... Why would you have your browser opening the file directly without asking you, if you don't like that behaviour?
It's not like it's a HTML page with a lot of process consuming javascript, java-that-requires-a-lot-of-loading-of-the-java-en gine or the like. It's a totally different content type. You have every way of choosing what to do with it.
1. Well, PASV still could cause a couple of problems. In NAT'ed or firewalled environments, where any connection might idle out, the main ftp connection (at port 21) could hang idle for perhaps several hours while data is transferring over ftp-data port (port 20). When the transfer is complete and commands are sent over port 21, the tcp connection might have been removed from firewalls in either end (smarter firewalls/nat implementations are aware of this problem and might as well change the local ip address sent in the ftp application layer)
2. The resume feature has always been there. The 20 year old RFC959 mentions REST and ftp servers don't have to be very "modern" to support that. Likewise, I can't remember a ftp client that didn't support REST, although they surely exist. Some of the ftp clients built into browsers didn't tend to be that clever regarding downloads.
3. Especially with the virtual host option. It might not be a simple option for a company to put up files for download on a shared server via ftp as no matter what hostname the client uses, there is no way to differenciate between the hosts. HTTP has the Host-header - which could be considered a hack. One of the more loved and useful hacks, though:-)
Come on, that "designed for files" is a too easy shot. For retrieving a specific, known resource, HTTP is pretty great, compared to FTP:
- No login- og directory-walking-overhead, just a simple request and a simple reply - Just a simple tcp connection (no extra data connection and firewall hell) - Simple conditional requests (If-Modified-Since) and Range-requests (Range, If-Range)
There really is nothing in the HTTP protocol that argues against HTTP as retrieving a single large resource, and where FTP would be better.
Other relevant conditions could be multiple files, unknown file names (where FTPs directory lists could be of great help) and the like. But for just requesting one big file, FTP doesn't have any advantage or is "more designed" for serving a large file. It isn't "more correct" or "better" to use FTP, just because of the abbreviation.
4. Eligibility. In order to be eligible, entrants must be 13 years of age or older, and a legal resident of one of the 50 United States, including Washington, D.C., Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.
Wow, didn't know Austria, Belgium, Canada etc. were included in the 50 United States!
This isn't a "victory over patents", it just means that the situation isn't resolved.
EPO (the European Patent Office) still have given out several thousands patents for software (and they continue to do so). These are not void until they are tried individually in court.
Så, basically there could be three results:
1. The directive was accepted with the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for pro-patent-people)
2. The directive was accepted without the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for con-patent-people)
3. The directive was dropped
The latter is the case. So there are no general guidelines. Of course this still means that bunch of patents wouldn't hold in court, but that road is much longer than a general guideline preventing the patents in the first place.
Besides, if you bang your head against the wall, you will see why it obviously is CRAZY that people don't wear helmets all the time!
No, this is not meant seriously - the same way that users who run lots of applications as non-root and su/sudo all the time believe that they are more safe.
What I really would like to see is another level of separation. It's fine that root is allowed to create individual accounts for database, webserver and other daemons (no need for your webserver to be able to read all mail on the system). But any individual non-root-user should be allowed to do that as well. There might not be any need for your irc-client to be able to access your Maildir or access other of the processes run by the same user.
Any user/application should be able to dynamically create a sub-user that can only access its own processes and files. It could be performed crudely using groups, where a sub-user is created with a new UID/GID and the original user is added to the group of the new UID (being able to control that user) - umask for that new user should allow group read/write.
It could be refined a lot. I really don't see any reason why a process de facto should be able to inherit all the power and privileges of the user running it. Of course there are exceptions (one might want one process to actually be able to have all the same privileges as one self), but these should be handled as such exceptions.
I just don't see why running a simple application should be able to risk your entire account (and maybe even the root account if you su from the compromised account).
I know that somebody will feel attacked and quickly riposte ("The statusbar-issue is only a problem, because Firefox has tabs, and IE doesn't even have tabs, besides *I* never visit sites using DHTML and silly animations, and I surf at textmode meaning that I never doubleclick, and animgifs are for lusers and who uses soft hyphens anyway"). If only people would put the same energy into bugfixing. I am encouraged to report bugs, yet I feel ridiculed when I post a bug report (e.g. #231123) with a simple test case and almost a year after it is still UNCONFIRMED.
I do have to admit that I feel further in the process than the times I have sent bugfixes to Microsoft regarding bugs in IE. But it's a pity if development of a browser is only good by comparing it to a poor browser.
I guess I'll stick with Firefox. At least 'till I get bored posting bug reports:) (though I must admit that Firefox emulates IE-bookmark-icon-randomness pretty well by dublicating icons at random - the issue was also present in Mozilla 1.7)
(Bugzilla-link might be copypasted to avoid referer)
Pear DB would be extremely useful even for just upgrading from mysql to mysqli, utilizing MySQL 4.1-features (such as prepared statements).
I have used Pear DB for a couple of applications. Now, after upgrading to MySQL 4.1, I'll just have to change one item (phptype from 'mysql' to 'mysqli'), as I'm already using prepare-statements.
Even if one don't find a switch from mysql to another system realistic for any reason, Pear DB is still useful for internal switches between MySQL 4.0 and 4.1.
Firefox is buggy regarding gopher nonetheless
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The nice Mozilla-people (e.g. us all) might want to fix the gopher-bug at first. I reported the bug nine months ago, and it is still marked as UNCONFIRMED (and present in Firefox 1.0):
Strictly on a side note (not advocating for or against the use of PDF):
Acrobat Reader 6 under Windows can easily be changed to launch really quick, if one "disables" all the useless plugins:
1. Enter the Reader-folder. 2. Create a backup-folder, named e.g. "plug_ins_disabled" 3. Move all files from the "plug_ins"-folder, except "EWH32.api", "printme.api" og "Search.api" to the new folder. 3b. Alternatively, just delete all files in the "plug_ins"-folder - again, with the exception of the above three files.
Open a PDF and get amazed:)
(some of the "useless" plugins are stuff like reading encrypted pdfs - that and other features might not exist if the related plugin is removed... I haven't had any problems, though, through ordinary use for the last six months after removing all these plugin-files)
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
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Press freedom
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I don't think Danes are any different from any other citizens in other countries.
Besides, you are completely right about the right-turn in Danish politics lately. The rise of votes for Danish People's Party, the disgusting 24-year-rule (which might be a violation of human rights) and so on. Hopefully the latter case will be brought to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights.
All these issues are surely problems that Denmark has to work with, instead of just celebrating that "We are on top of the world!" (at least with taxes, that is:)
Though, I really don't agree that the constructive criticism hasn't been present in the media - quite the opposite! National television and widespread newspapers has critizised these rulings several times. Another example is Denmark's participant in the coalition in the war against Iraq - the people didn't back this decision up, and the media was extremely critic about this.
So to sum up: I'm not proud of the government. I'm not proud of random laws restricting freedom (although it's not as heavy as the Patriot Act, as far as I can tell). I'm not proud of this country's foreign policy.
But I'm proud that the media actually critizises the government, instead of naïvely just "backing the country up in a time of war". I'm proud that one of the finest awards in Denmark regarding journalism (the Cavling award) was given to two Danish newspapers for their well-researched, clearly documented and critical articles of the democratic decisions (or lack of same) behind the Danish involvement in the war against Iraq. I'm proud that the people seem to have a more professional view on their politicians, instead of concerning whether they are a good Christian, father, businessman or not. Politics are regardes as professionals, not as saviours or heroes.
Oh, and I'm glad that one of the parties in the government clearly are taking distance from the Danish People's Party (even though they helped them get into government at first).
(actually, this really puzzles me, both regarding Denmark and the United States: The Danish constitution, "Grundloven", states that the Evangelian Lutherian church is the church of Denmark and is supported as such by the state (though we, of course, have freedom of religion) - but Denmark is not a very religious contry, and religion is seldom an issue in politics, in public school, etc. I don't know how religious the members of the parlaiment are, and I don't think that anybody cares. And vice versa, in the United States, where freedom of religion is a main issue, it clearly is a big deal whether or not a candidate is religious or not)
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
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Press freedom
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Actually he's been one of the leading journalists in Denmark and worked on national television since then. So no, his life wasn't ruined at all, quite the opposite.
Only a very few people have had to go to jail as a result of that paragraph (that's usually if those people continue to violate that code) - other usually just get a fine. He did too, but appealed the case.
We don't have a case where a legal system throws people in jail for every single offence. Of course it sounds dramatic when people talk about jail, but that's mostly just the result in a worst-case scenario.
I believe you can read all the details in the previously posted link in the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
I'm surprised that you think that is that hard to believe that a journalist that finds himself unfairly charged is able to walk up the legal system and appeal his case.
(regarding sports, watching NFL matches is actually getting pretty popular in Denmark - maybe Danes have finally figured out that soccer really just is two times eleven people kicking a football around:)
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
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Press freedom
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· Score: 2, Interesting
No, nobody was thrown in jail (we tend not to shoot and ask questions later:), but the issue mentioned by the original poster was actually challenged in a perspective related to press freedom, and the result clearly showed that context has to be taken in consideration. It also means that these wild shots usually are invalid (there's a difference between "some guy did foo and under these circumstances he got fined" and "You can't do foo!").
It's just an example of the freedom of the press. Journalists would usually have access to otherwise restricted places if the situation justifies it as part of their job.
Besides, I believe that I mentioned Fahrenheit as a less serious documentary, but I was only talking about parts of the movie that brought new information to the public in the US - information that has been widely available elsewhere.
I think your post is just a poor containing a few points that's hard to disagree on the way they are expressed. But alas, it's a pity that they are a clear example of someone having to polarize everything to make a point.
I really think it's poor if one makes his judgment based on snappy one-liner-anecdotes. I simply don't think it serves anyone well (maybe except for the person that finds comfort in living in a world where everything could be explained by a quick anecdote)
Obligatory The Daily Show quote
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Press freedom
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Steven Colbert: After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who said "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach." Jon Stewart: No, that was Stalin. Thomas Jefferson said that he'd "Rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press". Steven Colbert: Well, what else would you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler loving queer?
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
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Press freedom
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· Score: 1
At least I don't have to exaggerate just to make a point:)
No, I don't think there's much point in creating a superlinear scale to measure countries, if we don't look at the actual differences.
There's no sense in saying "my country scored higher than yours", if the details aren't taken into context.
I'm criticizing the "single point"-argument. People should look at the issues (even those at top of an index) instead of just acting like a Negative Nanny and grunting away like "At least my country doesn't (some random point)" and disregard everything. Hopefully the worldwide index should be more than just an internet survey or an IMDb top list ("YMMV", "what's good taste for you isn't good taste for me", et cetera)
I'm glad you like your country. Just don't let it ruin your judgment:)
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
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Press freedom
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· Score: 5, Informative
No, that's not "The truth". That's just one story you pull out as it would explain everything. Please, that kind of anecdotal argument is just a way of disrupting an argument. You could probably google for a lot more regarding Denmark and throw other red herrings about stuff not related to free press (like we pay a lot in taxes:)
It's true that the Danish penal code has parts regarding libel, slander, threats, etc. just as many other countries (penal code - "Straffeloven" - 266). This paragraph also contains a note regarding the above issues aimed at groups because of their race, color, ethnicity, faith or sexual orientation. Personally I don't think it's that different from targeting individuals (but hey, I'm a Dane:). The paragraph has been discussed now and then in the public, but the borders are actually quite wide. It's nothing like Germany or France (.. I pressume)
Besides, this has nothing to do with press freedom. A Danish nazi party is actually allowed to run their own radio station at the ordinary FM-band.
We did have an interesting case though regarding a radio documentary in 1985, where an interviewer talked with a bunch of young, declared racists ("Greenjackets"), spreading their racism. At first the interviewer was convicted of spreading racism at a lower court, but after appealing through the system (and even losing at Danish supreme court), he tried his case in front of the European Court of Human Rights which concluded that even though some of the statements made by the Greenjackets would be racist, the broadcast itself wasn't. You can read the entire case online.
It's actually a bit surprising when documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 (or, on a more serious level, Control Room), show how news are presented in the US. I think that many Danes weren't that surprised viewing these documentaries, because the Danish press already used several sources, meaning that a lot of the "surprising stories" in these documentaries weren't that surprising at all, since a lot of the footage had already been shown in public media.
I am pretty worried of US citizens believing that each and every single thing about US is the best in the world. We have a more free press, less corruption, a head of government elected by popular vote, but since we live in a world where people appearently get their "entire facts" based on one or two incidents (which is pretty usual at Slashdot - think of all the posts regarding any topic, where one would find a random incident about a webserver, a company, a product and continuously beat that argument in a manner like "How can you say this product is good, since (link to some old event)?"), nothing of this matters. It only matters if people are able to use Google to find that little piece of information, they care about and judge the rest of the world by that.
Slashdot Mirror
The funny part is that the image with the t-shirts shown at http://bancomicsans.com/image/bcsbycafepress512x25 6.jpg has the text "MADE IN THE USA" as a sales argument.
:-)
Well, Comic Sans was made in the USA as well
Without the trailing slash, Apache might redirect so the browser knows that it is in a directory (making relative links work).
If http://www.mozilla.org/projects didn't redirect you to http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ , the relative links would not work as the link "seamonkey/" would link you to http://www.mozilla.org/seamonkey/ (doesn't work) instead of http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ (which works). So, the redirect itself is fine.
The problem, however, is that Apache has to redirect with a full URL, including host name. A detault Apache uses its own ServerName (which might be some wacky, irrelevant name) instead of the name that the client requested in the Host header. This could make http://www.your-site.com/images redirect to http://mybrandnewcomputer/images/ which might not be desired.
This behaviour can be changed by setting UseCanonicalName to Off instead of (the default) On. That might solve your problem.
I personally think that UseCanonicalName should be Off per default since it mainly causes confusion otherwise (and a user has to know about HTTP and/or logic for redirection and the process of constructing an URL for debugging this problem).
No, I didn't skip the torrent suggestion, nor did I attack it.
I just pointed out that your argument - "there are far better ways to send large files. HTTP isn't one of them." - didn't justify your FTP suggestion at all.
HTTP has the ability to resume as well. I have never had problem resuming HTTP download. Some web browsers might not offer you this possibility for downloading (but might use it itself when requesting images on a page that were only partially downloaded at last visit). But then again, these browsers might not offer you resume download on ftp as well.
Anonymous login still doesn't qualify as "a better way" regarding large files. It's quite irrelevant regarding large files and only introduces more overhead. Not that overhead matters much as when the transfer is underway, the situation is the same whether you use HTTP or FTP.
I really can't find ground for your statement that you should be "unable to resume in most cases". I honestly can't recall this being an issue. I often download and resume large files from different HTTP servers.
But... Why would you have your browser opening the file directly without asking you, if you don't like that behaviour?
n gine or the like. It's a totally different content type. You have every way of choosing what to do with it.
It's not like it's a HTML page with a lot of process consuming javascript, java-that-requires-a-lot-of-loading-of-the-java-e
Instead you choose to be annoyed. I don't get it.
1. Well, PASV still could cause a couple of problems. In NAT'ed or firewalled environments, where any connection might idle out, the main ftp connection (at port 21) could hang idle for perhaps several hours while data is transferring over ftp-data port (port 20). When the transfer is complete and commands are sent over port 21, the tcp connection might have been removed from firewalls in either end (smarter firewalls/nat implementations are aware of this problem and might as well change the local ip address sent in the ftp application layer)
:-)
2. The resume feature has always been there. The 20 year old RFC959 mentions REST and ftp servers don't have to be very "modern" to support that. Likewise, I can't remember a ftp client that didn't support REST, although they surely exist. Some of the ftp clients built into browsers didn't tend to be that clever regarding downloads.
3. Especially with the virtual host option. It might not be a simple option for a company to put up files for download on a shared server via ftp as no matter what hostname the client uses, there is no way to differenciate between the hosts. HTTP has the Host-header - which could be considered a hack. One of the more loved and useful hacks, though
Come on, that "designed for files" is a too easy shot. For retrieving a specific, known resource, HTTP is pretty great, compared to FTP:
- No login- og directory-walking-overhead, just a simple request and a simple reply
- Just a simple tcp connection (no extra data connection and firewall hell)
- Simple conditional requests (If-Modified-Since) and Range-requests (Range, If-Range)
There really is nothing in the HTTP protocol that argues against HTTP as retrieving a single large resource, and where FTP would be better.
Other relevant conditions could be multiple files, unknown file names (where FTPs directory lists could be of great help) and the like. But for just requesting one big file, FTP doesn't have any advantage or is "more designed" for serving a large file. It isn't "more correct" or "better" to use FTP, just because of the abbreviation.
LIES, DAMN LIES!
I really hope Santa Claus is going to punish you this Christmas for lying!
4. Eligibility. In order to be eligible, entrants must be 13 years of age or older, and a legal resident of one of the 50 United States, including Washington, D.C., Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.
Wow, didn't know Austria, Belgium, Canada etc. were included in the 50 United States!
This isn't a "victory over patents", it just means that the situation isn't resolved.
EPO (the European Patent Office) still have given out several thousands patents for software (and they continue to do so). These are not void until they are tried individually in court.
Så, basically there could be three results:
1. The directive was accepted with the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for pro-patent-people)
2. The directive was accepted without the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for con-patent-people)
3. The directive was dropped
The latter is the case. So there are no general guidelines. Of course this still means that bunch of patents wouldn't hold in court, but that road is much longer than a general guideline preventing the patents in the first place.
.. but have you tried submitting the photos to slashdot?
Besides, if you bang your head against the wall, you will see why it obviously is CRAZY that people don't wear helmets all the time!
No, this is not meant seriously - the same way that users who run lots of applications as non-root and su/sudo all the time believe that they are more safe.
What I really would like to see is another level of separation. It's fine that root is allowed to create individual accounts for database, webserver and other daemons (no need for your webserver to be able to read all mail on the system). But any individual non-root-user should be allowed to do that as well. There might not be any need for your irc-client to be able to access your Maildir or access other of the processes run by the same user.
Any user/application should be able to dynamically create a sub-user that can only access its own processes and files. It could be performed crudely using groups, where a sub-user is created with a new UID/GID and the original user is added to the group of the new UID (being able to control that user) - umask for that new user should allow group read/write.
It could be refined a lot. I really don't see any reason why a process de facto should be able to inherit all the power and privileges of the user running it. Of course there are exceptions (one might want one process to actually be able to have all the same privileges as one self), but these should be handled as such exceptions.
I just don't see why running a simple application should be able to risk your entire account (and maybe even the root account if you su from the compromised account).
Oh my God, you have undermined their whole business plan!
Since when has it been a showstopper for the US to enforce US law in other countries? :)
And remember: If you find pills lying around in streets or hidden passages, just eat'em. They are definitely good for you.
Because:
I know that somebody will feel attacked and quickly riposte ("The statusbar-issue is only a problem, because Firefox has tabs, and IE doesn't even have tabs, besides *I* never visit sites using DHTML and silly animations, and I surf at textmode meaning that I never doubleclick, and animgifs are for lusers and who uses soft hyphens anyway"). If only people would put the same energy into bugfixing. I am encouraged to report bugs, yet I feel ridiculed when I post a bug report (e.g. #231123) with a simple test case and almost a year after it is still UNCONFIRMED.
I do have to admit that I feel further in the process than the times I have sent bugfixes to Microsoft regarding bugs in IE. But it's a pity if development of a browser is only good by comparing it to a poor browser.
I guess I'll stick with Firefox. At least 'till I get bored posting bug reports :) (though I must admit that Firefox emulates IE-bookmark-icon-randomness pretty well by dublicating icons at random - the issue was also present in Mozilla 1.7)
(Bugzilla-link might be copypasted to avoid referer)
It's not even limited to people changing RDBMS.
Pear DB would be extremely useful even for just upgrading from mysql to mysqli, utilizing MySQL 4.1-features (such as prepared statements).
I have used Pear DB for a couple of applications. Now, after upgrading to MySQL 4.1, I'll just have to change one item (phptype from 'mysql' to 'mysqli'), as I'm already using prepare-statements.
Even if one don't find a switch from mysql to another system realistic for any reason, Pear DB is still useful for internal switches between MySQL 4.0 and 4.1.
The nice Mozilla-people (e.g. us all) might want to fix the gopher-bug at first. I reported the bug nine months ago, and it is still marked as UNCONFIRMED (and present in Firefox 1.0):
3 25
:)
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233
Still, it seems like I'm the only one to have voted for that bug. Wonder why
Strictly on a side note (not advocating for or against the use of PDF):
:)
Acrobat Reader 6 under Windows can easily be changed to launch really quick, if one "disables" all the useless plugins:
1. Enter the Reader-folder.
2. Create a backup-folder, named e.g. "plug_ins_disabled"
3. Move all files from the "plug_ins"-folder, except "EWH32.api", "printme.api" og "Search.api" to the new folder.
3b. Alternatively, just delete all files in the "plug_ins"-folder - again, with the exception of the above three files.
Open a PDF and get amazed
(some of the "useless" plugins are stuff like reading encrypted pdfs - that and other features might not exist if the related plugin is removed... I haven't had any problems, though, through ordinary use for the last six months after removing all these plugin-files)
I don't think Danes are any different from any other citizens in other countries.
:)
Besides, you are completely right about the right-turn in Danish politics lately. The rise of votes for Danish People's Party, the disgusting 24-year-rule (which might be a violation of human rights) and so on. Hopefully the latter case will be brought to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights.
All these issues are surely problems that Denmark has to work with, instead of just celebrating that "We are on top of the world!" (at least with taxes, that is
Though, I really don't agree that the constructive criticism hasn't been present in the media - quite the opposite! National television and widespread newspapers has critizised these rulings several times. Another example is Denmark's participant in the coalition in the war against Iraq - the people didn't back this decision up, and the media was extremely critic about this.
So to sum up: I'm not proud of the government. I'm not proud of random laws restricting freedom (although it's not as heavy as the Patriot Act, as far as I can tell). I'm not proud of this country's foreign policy.
But I'm proud that the media actually critizises the government, instead of naïvely just "backing the country up in a time of war". I'm proud that one of the finest awards in Denmark regarding journalism (the Cavling award) was given to two Danish newspapers for their well-researched, clearly documented and critical articles of the democratic decisions (or lack of same) behind the Danish involvement in the war against Iraq. I'm proud that the people seem to have a more professional view on their politicians, instead of concerning whether they are a good Christian, father, businessman or not. Politics are regardes as professionals, not as saviours or heroes.
Oh, and I'm glad that one of the parties in the government clearly are taking distance from the Danish People's Party (even though they helped them get into government at first).
(actually, this really puzzles me, both regarding Denmark and the United States: The Danish constitution, "Grundloven", states that the Evangelian Lutherian church is the church of Denmark and is supported as such by the state (though we, of course, have freedom of religion) - but Denmark is not a very religious contry, and religion is seldom an issue in politics, in public school, etc. I don't know how religious the members of the parlaiment are, and I don't think that anybody cares. And vice versa, in the United States, where freedom of religion is a main issue, it clearly is a big deal whether or not a candidate is religious or not)
Actually he's been one of the leading journalists in Denmark and worked on national television since then. So no, his life wasn't ruined at all, quite the opposite.
:)
Only a very few people have had to go to jail as a result of that paragraph (that's usually if those people continue to violate that code) - other usually just get a fine. He did too, but appealed the case.
We don't have a case where a legal system throws people in jail for every single offence. Of course it sounds dramatic when people talk about jail, but that's mostly just the result in a worst-case scenario.
I believe you can read all the details in the previously posted link in the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
I'm surprised that you think that is that hard to believe that a journalist that finds himself unfairly charged is able to walk up the legal system and appeal his case.
(regarding sports, watching NFL matches is actually getting pretty popular in Denmark - maybe Danes have finally figured out that soccer really just is two times eleven people kicking a football around
No, nobody was thrown in jail (we tend not to shoot and ask questions later :), but the issue mentioned by the original poster was actually challenged in a perspective related to press freedom, and the result clearly showed that context has to be taken in consideration. It also means that these wild shots usually are invalid (there's a difference between "some guy did foo and under these circumstances he got fined" and "You can't do foo!").
It's just an example of the freedom of the press. Journalists would usually have access to otherwise restricted places if the situation justifies it as part of their job.
Besides, I believe that I mentioned Fahrenheit as a less serious documentary, but I was only talking about parts of the movie that brought new information to the public in the US - information that has been widely available elsewhere.
I think your post is just a poor containing a few points that's hard to disagree on the way they are expressed. But alas, it's a pity that they are a clear example of someone having to polarize everything to make a point.
I really think it's poor if one makes his judgment based on snappy one-liner-anecdotes. I simply don't think it serves anyone well (maybe except for the person that finds comfort in living in a world where everything could be explained by a quick anecdote)
Steven Colbert: After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who said "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."
Jon Stewart: No, that was Stalin. Thomas Jefferson said that he'd "Rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press".
Steven Colbert: Well, what else would you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler loving queer?
At least I don't have to exaggerate just to make a point :)
:)
No, I don't think there's much point in creating a superlinear scale to measure countries, if we don't look at the actual differences.
There's no sense in saying "my country scored higher than yours", if the details aren't taken into context.
I'm criticizing the "single point"-argument. People should look at the issues (even those at top of an index) instead of just acting like a Negative Nanny and grunting away like "At least my country doesn't (some random point)" and disregard everything. Hopefully the worldwide index should be more than just an internet survey or an IMDb top list ("YMMV", "what's good taste for you isn't good taste for me", et cetera)
I'm glad you like your country. Just don't let it ruin your judgment
It's true that the Danish penal code has parts regarding libel, slander, threats, etc. just as many other countries (penal code - "Straffeloven" - 266). This paragraph also contains a note regarding the above issues aimed at groups because of their race, color, ethnicity, faith or sexual orientation. Personally I don't think it's that different from targeting individuals (but hey, I'm a Dane :). The paragraph has been discussed now and then in the public, but the borders are actually quite wide. It's nothing like Germany or France (.. I pressume)
Besides, this has nothing to do with press freedom. A Danish nazi party is actually allowed to run their own radio station at the ordinary FM-band.
We did have an interesting case though regarding a radio documentary in 1985, where an interviewer talked with a bunch of young, declared racists ("Greenjackets"), spreading their racism. At first the interviewer was convicted of spreading racism at a lower court, but after appealing through the system (and even losing at Danish supreme court), he tried his case in front of the European Court of Human Rights which concluded that even though some of the statements made by the Greenjackets would be racist, the broadcast itself wasn't. You can read the entire case online.
It's actually a bit surprising when documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 (or, on a more serious level, Control Room), show how news are presented in the US. I think that many Danes weren't that surprised viewing these documentaries, because the Danish press already used several sources, meaning that a lot of the "surprising stories" in these documentaries weren't that surprising at all, since a lot of the footage had already been shown in public media.
I am pretty worried of US citizens believing that each and every single thing about US is the best in the world. We have a more free press, less corruption, a head of government elected by popular vote, but since we live in a world where people appearently get their "entire facts" based on one or two incidents (which is pretty usual at Slashdot - think of all the posts regarding any topic, where one would find a random incident about a webserver, a company, a product and continuously beat that argument in a manner like "How can you say this product is good, since (link to some old event)?"), nothing of this matters. It only matters if people are able to use Google to find that little piece of information, they care about and judge the rest of the world by that.
The difference between the president and God is that God doesn't think he is the president.