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This bill doesn't legalize every part of Bush's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program but it takes a large step beyond FISA towards what Bush did. There was absolutely no reason to destroy the FISA framework, which is already an extraordinarily pro-Executive instrument that vests vast eavesdropping powers in the President, in order to empower the President to spy on large parts of our international communications with no warrants at all. This was all done by invoking the scary spectre of Terrorism -- "you must give up your privacy and constitutional rights to us if you want us to keep you safe" -- and it is Obama's willingness to embrace that rancid framework, the defining mindset of the Bush years, that is most deserving of intense criticism here.

Beyond that, this attitude that we should uncritically support Obama in everything he does and refrain from criticizing him is unhealthy in the extreme. No political leader merits uncritical devotion -- neither when they are running for office nor when they occupy it -- and there are few things more dangerous than announcing that you so deeply believe in the Core Goodness of a political leader, or that we face such extreme political crises that you trust and support whatever your Leader does, even when you don't understand it or think that it's wrong. That's precisely the warped authoritarian mindset that defined the Bush Movement and led to the insanity of the post-9/11 Era, and that uncritical reverence is no more attractive or healthy when it's shifted to a new Leader.

THE MCCAIN NEGATIVE WORDCLOUDWords Not in McCain’s Tech Policy | blog |social network | collaboration | hyperlink | democracy | google | wikipedia | open access | open source | standards | gnu | linux | | BitTorrent | anonymity | facebook | wiki | free speech | games | comcast | media concentration | media | lolcats |

Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products. The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people. Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?

“Senator McCain’s technology plan doesn’t put Americans first—it is a rehash of tax breaks and giveaways to the big corporations and their lobbyists who advise the McCain campaign. This plan won’t do enough for hardworking Americans who are still waiting for competitive and affordable broadband service at their homes and businesses. It won’t do enough to ensure a free and open Internet that guarantees freedom of speech. It won’t do anything to ensure that we use technology to bring transparency to government and free Washington from the grip of lobbyists and special interests. Senator McCain’s plan would continue George Bush’s neglect of this critical sector and relegate America’s communications infrastructure to second-class status. That’s not acceptable,” said William Kennard, Former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission.

If you are a long-time follower of the Turkish blogosphere you will have undoubtedly heard about the Turkish ban on Wordpress….and the periodic bans on YouTube, and on the social-networking widget site Slide, oh..and now on Dailymotion as well.

It is hard to keep track now-a-days and frustrating. Turkish bloggers feel the same way too, and are protesting the constant banning of sites by voluntarily banning their own. So how are Turkish bloggers protesting these periodic bans on the internet? By putting the following up on their website: Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir which translates roughly into “This site is blocked by [the author's] own choice”.

Modern Chinese nationalism often veers between Mr. Coubertin's and Mr. Maurras's ideas of nationhood. Officially, the government likes to talk about friendship between peoples, and harmony and peace, while at the same time promoting an injured sense of historical Chinese victimhood at the hands of foreign powers. When demonstrations of Chinese nationalism run out of control, with or without official encouragement, the feeling of national hurt can turn to violent aggression. It has been happening of late in the U.S., among other places, when Chinese students attacked Tibetans, or indeed anyone who "offended the feelings of the Chinese people."

This type of official patriotism is based on a peculiarly skewed view of history. Rather than celebrate the high points of Chinese civilization, the emphasis falls entirely on suffering at the hands of foreigners. The sense of victimhood runs so deep that it is impossible for most Chinese to view themselves as aggressors. The idea that Tibetans, for example, might have some reason to see themselves as victims of the Chinese, is absurd. More than that, many Chinese genuinely believe that this type of Tibetan "propaganda" has been deliberately taken up by the Western press to inflict yet another humiliation on the Chinese people.

This does not mean, however, that democracy would be an automatic cure. In the unlikely event that China were suddenly to have a peaceful transformation to a liberal democracy, nationalism would not go away. No party seen to be soft on foreign powers, especially Japan and the U.S., would be. Modern Chinese history has been so bloody that the scars will take a long time to heal. Ethnic nationalism can be a kind of poison, especially when it is based on a feeling of victimhood. Political freedom should help to soothe such feelings in the long run, but this will not happen in time for the Beijing Olympics.

The number of Internet users in China hit 228.5 million in March -- for the first time surpassing the number of users in the United States, 217.1 million, according to the Beijing-based research firm BDA China.

As we’ve written elsewhere, the CCP views media development as a critical factor in a global war for public opinion. Likewise, many CCP leaders have come to regard “Western” media as pawns working for the interests of Western governments in spreading their ideology and influence — hence the party’s obsession with “color revolutions” and the role of the press.

Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.

The drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information.