Monday, September 10, 2007
China's Cyberwar - Not Just on the US
More, from Ars Technica, on Chinese cyberattacks around the world. It seems like this is looking more and more like the real deal.
Read the whole thing.
Read the whole thing.
A Little Bit More Craziness from Ahmadinejad
Just a little bit of craziness from Iranian President Imajihadi (or whatever his name is) via AFP:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday lashed out at his Western foes which demand Iran halt its sensitive nuclear activities, saying they were "racing to hell".
"The Iranian people have climbed over difficult mountain passes on their path of progress. The enemies need to step aside from our path and give up their satanic ideas," he said, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
"One or two countries are refusing to accept that Iran is now mastering nuclear technology ... Some countries are racing towards hell. But this makes us sad and, for the good of their people, we will resist."
Um, okay.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday lashed out at his Western foes which demand Iran halt its sensitive nuclear activities, saying they were "racing to hell".
"The Iranian people have climbed over difficult mountain passes on their path of progress. The enemies need to step aside from our path and give up their satanic ideas," he said, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
"One or two countries are refusing to accept that Iran is now mastering nuclear technology ... Some countries are racing towards hell. But this makes us sad and, for the good of their people, we will resist."
Um, okay.
Some More on Putin's Russia
Another good bit on Putin's Russia from La Russophobe, this time an overview of a story by Dr. Robert Horvath, a research fellow at Melbourne University's Contemporary Europe Research Centre and author of The Legacy of Soviet Dissent: Dissidents, Democratisation and Radical Nationalism in Russia.
Some key quotes:
IT WAS ironic that Paul Keating's exhortation for us to extend a warm welcome to Vladimir Putin was published in The Age on September 5, the anniversary of one of the most tragic events in Russian history.
It was on that day in 1918 that the Bolshevik regime issued its decree on the "Red Terror", which authorised the secret police, the Cheka, to conduct extrajudicial executions and to incarcerate "class enemies" in concentration camps. Many decades later, prisoners in the Gulag would mark that day with ceremonies in memory of the victims of the "Red Terror", which they understood to be the source of the violence that culminated in the mass slaughter of the 1930s.
And some more:
The primary reason for the Kremlin's sabre-rattling on the international stage is to be found not in the West, but in the peculiar brand of neo-totalitarianism that is emerging in Putin's Russia.
Today, the Russian state is dominated by "Chekists" and other representatives of the Soviet-era security apparatus, who have systematically destroyed the fragile structures of an emerging democracy. During the past seven years, they have stifled the independent media, emasculated parliament, intimidated lawyers and imposed rigid controls on civil society.
If the murders of some of Putin's most outspoken critics remain unsolved, there is no doubt about the Kremlin's responsibility for the carnage in Chechnya. The razing of Grozny, a city of 400,000 before the first Russian invasion, is an atrocity that has no parallel in European history since the Nazis' destruction of Warsaw. In accordance with Putin's promise, in criminal slang, "to waste the terrorists in the shithouse", his security forces unleashed a campaign of "disappearances" on a scale that Human Rights Watch designated as a crime against humanity.
I've quoted quite a bit. Go read the whole thing for yourself.
Some key quotes:
IT WAS ironic that Paul Keating's exhortation for us to extend a warm welcome to Vladimir Putin was published in The Age on September 5, the anniversary of one of the most tragic events in Russian history.
It was on that day in 1918 that the Bolshevik regime issued its decree on the "Red Terror", which authorised the secret police, the Cheka, to conduct extrajudicial executions and to incarcerate "class enemies" in concentration camps. Many decades later, prisoners in the Gulag would mark that day with ceremonies in memory of the victims of the "Red Terror", which they understood to be the source of the violence that culminated in the mass slaughter of the 1930s.
And some more:
The primary reason for the Kremlin's sabre-rattling on the international stage is to be found not in the West, but in the peculiar brand of neo-totalitarianism that is emerging in Putin's Russia.
Today, the Russian state is dominated by "Chekists" and other representatives of the Soviet-era security apparatus, who have systematically destroyed the fragile structures of an emerging democracy. During the past seven years, they have stifled the independent media, emasculated parliament, intimidated lawyers and imposed rigid controls on civil society.
If the murders of some of Putin's most outspoken critics remain unsolved, there is no doubt about the Kremlin's responsibility for the carnage in Chechnya. The razing of Grozny, a city of 400,000 before the first Russian invasion, is an atrocity that has no parallel in European history since the Nazis' destruction of Warsaw. In accordance with Putin's promise, in criminal slang, "to waste the terrorists in the shithouse", his security forces unleashed a campaign of "disappearances" on a scale that Human Rights Watch designated as a crime against humanity.
I've quoted quite a bit. Go read the whole thing for yourself.
Atlas Shrugged to be Made into Movie? Don't Hold Your Breathe
I'll believe an Atlas Shrugged movie will be made when I see it. And I hold out no hope that it will be anything but atrocious. However, if it helps expose the culture to even a few of Ayn Rand's ideas without misrepresenting any, it would probably be a net gain.
Australia's Sale of Uranium to Russia: Big Mistake
I have to agree with this blog post: Australia's making a big mistake in selling uranium to Russia, a country that has its own significant reserves. I'm not sure what compelled Australia to do so, with the significant risk that some of this uranium could show up in Iranian labs.
The source of the story linked in the post is Al Jazeera, but that doesn't change the reality of Australia's mistake. Also, in reading the story, I see that I'm in agreement with Greenpeace Australia.
Yuck.
The source of the story linked in the post is Al Jazeera, but that doesn't change the reality of Australia's mistake. Also, in reading the story, I see that I'm in agreement with Greenpeace Australia.
Yuck.
Digg Report
Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 4613 Diggs, is a link to some admittedly impressive pictures of large holes (mostly mines). So, Digg scores some points for the coolness factor, but again, it's all of no real importance.
UN Human Rights Commissioner Attends Anti-US/Anti-Israeli Conference
It never fails to amaze me how inherently corrupt is the United Nations. One would think that the organization would have lost all legitimacy with the "Oil for Food" scandal, but that story was relatively buried in the mainstream press. Now, via Gateway Punding, we have news on the UN Commissioner for Human Rights attending a meeting of the "Non-Aligned Movement," headed by Cuba.
Some of this oganizations past work include the following:
This is the same group that agreed to bash just one country in their declaration of human rights, Israel, by:
"Expressing deep concern on the cultural uprooting which is continuously unfolding in the Palestinian occupied territory and the occupied Syrian Golan on the basis of such doctrines by the occupying power.
"Oh, and the group also denounced:
"The attempts to identify any culture with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."
You wouldn't want to do that!
Someday, maybe we'll get some sense and pull the US from the UN altogether. We have NATO, which is all we need.
Some of this oganizations past work include the following:
This is the same group that agreed to bash just one country in their declaration of human rights, Israel, by:
"Expressing deep concern on the cultural uprooting which is continuously unfolding in the Palestinian occupied territory and the occupied Syrian Golan on the basis of such doctrines by the occupying power.
"Oh, and the group also denounced:
"The attempts to identify any culture with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."
You wouldn't want to do that!
Someday, maybe we'll get some sense and pull the US from the UN altogether. We have NATO, which is all we need.
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