So, the average Cuban is still richer than the average Chinese. In ten years it might be different, though. But all this is irrelevant to the parent's point: dropping an embargo doesn't necessarily lead to political liberalization, even if the people do become better off. You can be very rich andstilldictatorial.
The circuit’s ruling came in a case that dates to 2004, when federal prosecutors probing a Northern California steroid ring obtained warrants to seize the results of urine samples of 10 pro baseball players at a Long Beach, California drug-testing facility. The players had been tested as part of a voluntary drug-deterrence program implemented by Major League Baseball.
Federal agents serving the search warrant on the Comprehensive Drug Testing lab wound up making a copy of a directory containing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with results of every player that was tested in the program. Then, back in the office, they scrolled freely through the spreadsheet, ultimately noting the names of all 104 players who tested positive.
The government argued that the information was lawfully found in “plain sight,” just like marijuana being discovered on a dining room table during a court-authorized weapons search of a home. But the court noted that the agents actively scrolled to the right side of the spreadsheet to peek at all the players test results, when they could easily have selected, copied and pasted only the rows listing the players named in the search warrant.
This... doesn't actually sound that objectionable. Scrolling to the right breaks the Fourth Amendment?
Think about it this way. The news is public, now. Do you see any frothing outrage, outside of a few fringe activist groups? Outside of Slashdot? No?
There doesn't seem to be any real interest now, so there definitely wouldn't be any then, in the with-us-or-against-us environment in the years immediately after 9/11. So how would a newspaper or media outlet gain by breaking the story? It'll just instantly lose all its government contacts, but not gain any new readership. Why would anyone publish it?
The free coverage is limited to built-up public areas, not islandwide (which makes sense - this is a tropical city, who goes outside to work? Hide indoors under air conditioning!). So to find the free wifi you need to trek to the nearest McDonald's or such.
Issuing ID cards is an old tactic dating from the colonial period to suppress national security - as in, regular serial bomb attacks. Both the British and new local governments used it, either to suppress independence movements, or to suppress communist/breakaway movements post-independence.
Regular bombings is not something that happens nowadays in the West, obviously. The United States, which is generally free of persistent domestic terrorism, may not have excuses to implement national ID and databases, but other countries may need it. Don't export your conceptions on first-world freedom to places where first-world safety don't exist.
It's reasonable to assume that electronics may be more expensive in Ghana, so a used HDD may be worth more.
But, yes, foreigners haggling probably can't get a good price anyway.
No: Flashblock doesn't prevent flash applets from running, it merely hides them as soon as it can. If your connection is sufficiently fast and your computer sufficiently slow, you'll still get hit by Flash exploits.
And then there's PDF exploits/misc browser holes, too.
Damn it, he's not saying "we should bury Darwin's theory of evolution altogether to hide from the mad fundie hordes!", he's proposing a change in terminology that seems entirely appropriate, to be honest.
And the reason, quite rightly, is this: "We don't call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism." The theory of biological evolution has changed since Darwin introduced it.
To continue to label modern evolutionary theory as 'Darwinism' walks into a creationist trap to paint evolution as some sort of Darwin-worshipping religion. And I only wish I were kidding.
Cue the million and one Slashdot analysts who believe they, yes, they! alone understand Thai domestic politics, and hence they know that this is a simple instance of unreasoning tyrannical government censorship rather than, say, a careful political gambit being played by pro-monarchy upper-class forces amidst a political battle that has lasted the past two years.
Yeesh. This isn't some minor county library board going thinkofthechildren!!1! yet again. The point isn't to actually control speech - this is a power play.
Safe for use by second and third parties to redistribute published news, in that if you republish or distribute a Xinhua article in the PRC, you probably won't get arrested, because the article's already been vetted. It doesn't mean "safe to take for granted, without scepticism".
Countries that censor news often don't explicitly define what is acceptable, and the standards can change often, hence why internal political commentators need to rely on such gauges to see what the current acceptable topics are.
Internet Explorer has a porn^H^H^H^H privacy mode where privacy settings are locked down. Why not build an analagous 'secure mode' for Firefox or Konq. where security settings are all locked to high heaven for that browsing session only?
That way users can both bank online securely and not have half the web break for them because they've disabled javascript.
Softmaker Office looks like a freeasinbeer release of the 2006 version to promote sales of the 2008 version. There's no link to sources on the site, anyway.
More precisely, China mandates journalist visas so that particular journalists can be stopped from entering.
Checking the thousands of visa applications for such names is slow work, so what you do is make journalist passes difficult to get. Large media organizations can afford to arrange for the visas directly with your embassies, so they don't get significantly affected. On the other hand, those pesky indie journalists will stand out like a sore thumb.
And if the reporters you dislike do enter under a tourist pass, you can punish them for the offense of lying on their visa application, rather than risk provoking a media frenzy over press freedom.
Stick their heads inside a 55 gallon drum and blast Metalica in the other end @ 400 db.
From CNN:
But environmentalists say that the sonar can hurt whales much farther than 1,000 meters away and that the noise created by the sonar "was like having a jet engine in the Supreme Court multiplied 2,000 times, compensating for water," attorney Richard Kendall told the justices.
Yeah, rhetorical. The political situations in such countries are always complicated and deeply nuanced - not something that armchair commentators at Slashdot appreciate.
A blogger is detained under the ISA for writings that may be read to insult Islam. Members of the radical Islamic party then line to support an anti-ISA petition. And so on - how many Slashdotters understand the chain of events?
Trivia: the Malaysian government which is pulling this is not the radical Islamic wing. The Internal Security Act has even been used against the Islamic party. Make of that what you will.
Slashdot Mirror
Purchasing power per person, 2008:
Cuba: $9500
People's Republic of China: $6000
So, the average Cuban is still richer than the average Chinese. In ten years it might be different, though. But all this is irrelevant to the parent's point: dropping an embargo doesn't necessarily lead to political liberalization, even if the people do become better off. You can be very rich and still dictatorial.
You can ban it, but who would believe you? There's no way for the CIA to show that it isn't spying even if it really wasn't.
This... doesn't actually sound that objectionable. Scrolling to the right breaks the Fourth Amendment?
I don't know about you, but I get exact matches for "foo bar baz".
Think about it this way. The news is public, now. Do you see any frothing outrage, outside of a few fringe activist groups? Outside of Slashdot? No?
There doesn't seem to be any real interest now, so there definitely wouldn't be any then, in the with-us-or-against-us environment in the years immediately after 9/11. So how would a newspaper or media outlet gain by breaking the story? It'll just instantly lose all its government contacts, but not gain any new readership. Why would anyone publish it?
The free coverage is limited to built-up public areas, not islandwide (which makes sense - this is a tropical city, who goes outside to work? Hide indoors under air conditioning!). So to find the free wifi you need to trek to the nearest McDonald's or such.
*threats to national security. Bleagh, need sleep
Issuing ID cards is an old tactic dating from the colonial period to suppress national security - as in, regular serial bomb attacks. Both the British and new local governments used it, either to suppress independence movements, or to suppress communist/breakaway movements post-independence.
Regular bombings is not something that happens nowadays in the West, obviously. The United States, which is generally free of persistent domestic terrorism, may not have excuses to implement national ID and databases, but other countries may need it. Don't export your conceptions on first-world freedom to places where first-world safety don't exist.
It's reasonable to assume that electronics may be more expensive in Ghana, so a used HDD may be worth more. But, yes, foreigners haggling probably can't get a good price anyway.
This is, amazingly, an actual (and common!) Chinese proverb:
No matter how strong you are, there is always someone stronger.
An amazingly optimistic culture, eh?
This comic captures this point very clearly. Also: "[The] future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson
No: Flashblock doesn't prevent flash applets from running, it merely hides them as soon as it can. If your connection is sufficiently fast and your computer sufficiently slow, you'll still get hit by Flash exploits. And then there's PDF exploits/misc browser holes, too.
Less "beta" and more "it's not WinME/Vista redux, honest!", I guess.
Damn it, he's not saying "we should bury Darwin's theory of evolution altogether to hide from the mad fundie hordes!", he's proposing a change in terminology that seems entirely appropriate, to be honest.
And the reason, quite rightly, is this: "We don't call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism." The theory of biological evolution has changed since Darwin introduced it.
To continue to label modern evolutionary theory as 'Darwinism' walks into a creationist trap to paint evolution as some sort of Darwin-worshipping religion. And I only wish I were kidding.
Cue the million and one Slashdot analysts who believe they, yes, they! alone understand Thai domestic politics, and hence they know that this is a simple instance of unreasoning tyrannical government censorship rather than, say, a careful political gambit being played by pro-monarchy upper-class forces amidst a political battle that has lasted the past two years.
Yeesh. This isn't some minor county library board going thinkofthechildren!!1! yet again. The point isn't to actually control speech - this is a power play.
Safe for use by second and third parties to redistribute published news, in that if you republish or distribute a Xinhua article in the PRC, you probably won't get arrested, because the article's already been vetted. It doesn't mean "safe to take for granted, without scepticism".
Countries that censor news often don't explicitly define what is acceptable, and the standards can change often, hence why internal political commentators need to rely on such gauges to see what the current acceptable topics are.
Internet Explorer has a porn^H^H^H^H privacy mode where privacy settings are locked down. Why not build an analagous 'secure mode' for Firefox or Konq. where security settings are all locked to high heaven for that browsing session only?
That way users can both bank online securely and not have half the web break for them because they've disabled javascript.
Wait, wait - global warming legislation crushes liberty? Security theatre obviously does, but how does environmental legislation do it?
Do you lump in 'creation science' court rulings in there as well? Oh no, the evil statist liberals are coming!
That's because governments are too incompetent and stupid to do anything themselves, don't you know that! [/groupthink]
"Global warming is caused by solar changes" crackpot vs. "electric universe" crackpot?
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Softmaker Office looks like a freeasinbeer release of the 2006 version to promote sales of the 2008 version. There's no link to sources on the site, anyway.
More precisely, China mandates journalist visas so that particular journalists can be stopped from entering.
Checking the thousands of visa applications for such names is slow work, so what you do is make journalist passes difficult to get. Large media organizations can afford to arrange for the visas directly with your embassies, so they don't get significantly affected. On the other hand, those pesky indie journalists will stand out like a sore thumb.
And if the reporters you dislike do enter under a tourist pass, you can punish them for the offense of lying on their visa application, rather than risk provoking a media frenzy over press freedom.
From CNN:
Jet engine at 30m is 150 dB. So you need to go beyond 400 dB ;)
Yeah, rhetorical. The political situations in such countries are always complicated and deeply nuanced - not something that armchair commentators at Slashdot appreciate.
A blogger is detained under the ISA for writings that may be read to insult Islam. Members of the radical Islamic party then line to support an anti-ISA petition. And so on - how many Slashdotters understand the chain of events?
Really, every time an article like this comes up, all that happens is either comments that think that everywhere else is ruled by the Taliban or comments that are absolutely certain that the US/UK is also totally fascist, really! (protip: no, it isn't, and you have no idea how political freedom works. This as someone who's actually lived in Malaysia, Singapore, and the UK before: the British have an amazing degree of political freedom.)
Not exactly perceptive discussion...
Trivia: the Malaysian government which is pulling this is not the radical Islamic wing. The Internal Security Act has even been used against the Islamic party. Make of that what you will.