antimeria

Google has removed its filters on Google.cn, its China portal, due to “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China.” The upshot, of course, is this:

Google’s action and accompanying blog post strongly suggests that they believe the hack was directed by the Chinese government:

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.

You could argue that not having a presence in China, even a censored one, would ultimately contribute to the government’s stranglehold on the people, given that the Green Dam and Great Firewall (which, as far as I know, still doesn’t care for yours truly) are still standing tall, but I commend Google’s willingness to take a stand, especially considering the money they could have made in China.

Thanks to BB, Erin, and everyone else who highlighted the story.

You can’t make this stuff up:

While explaining his opposition to allowing same-sex couples to adopt children, [Utah Senator Chris Buttars] told the press… “I don’t mind gays. But I don’t want ‘em stuffing it down my throat all the time. Certainly not in my kid’s face.”
[...]
In the past, Buttars has said that gay men and women are “the greatest threat to America going down.”

That said, I want to give him credit for backing the Mormon Church’s surprising push to bar employers and landlords from discriminating on the basis of sexuality, even if the thought makes him gag. So kudos to two overlapping groups of people (the Mormon Church, old white men) that I don’t often mention favorably in this space.

* “2M4M” was the ironic acronym used for National Organization for Marriage’s gay-marriage-bashing campaign.

1. It’s been floating around the blogosphere, but this NYer article about Cameron Todd Willingham’s execution after being conviced of arson and murder is a monster. Read it.
2. I joined a fantasy football league. My goal is to not finish dead last.
3. If you haven’t read it yet, point your RSS reader at the Best of Wikipedia.
4. If you use Google Reader, may I suggest replacing its screenful of bag-over-the-head-ugly with Helvetireader? For Gcal fans, Helvitical provides similar serif-free sexiness. (Firefoxers will need Greasemonkey)
5. I need some more reading recommendations. Fiction, this time.

I saw (500) Days of Summer a couple weeks ago, but Caroline wrote something first (and better than I would have). So I’m going to just focus on District 9. This actually works out pretty well, because I am the kind of guy who reads a lot of news and social commentary, is mildly obsessed with military esoterica, and generally prefers “flying shrapnel” explosions to the “emotional breakdown” variety.

In case you haven’t heard, District 9’s premise is pretty intriguing. A huge alien mothership enters the atmosphere and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of waiting for the ship to do something besides shade parts of the city, engineers cut a hole in the ship and find… aliens! They’re neither benevolent nor malevolent, however–they’re pretty docile and oddly primitive (except for their weaponry, which they never seem to use and cannot be fired by humans). The South African government ultimately sets up a camp for the aliens, mockingly called “prawns,” which rapidly devolves into a slum guarded by private defense contractor Multi-National United (Sure, it’s a stupid name, but real-world mercenary companies have pretty dumb names too: Custer Battles, Sharp End International, and Xe Services, formerly Blackwater).

Fast-forward twenty years, and racial xenophobic tension is starting to boil over. MNU is put in charge of relocating the million aliens from the D9 shantytown to a new camp far outside the city, and point man for this gigantic undertaking is…a middle manager. Inexplicably, Wikus van der Merwe, a good-natured, spineless bureaucrat, is the tip of the spear.

You’re at the edge of the map. Here, there be spoilers.

(more…)

Radley Balko linked a great Popular Mechanics article on the dubious accuracy of forensics:

On television and in the movies, forensic examiners unravel difficult cases with a combination of scientific acumen, cutting-edge technology and dogged persistence. The gee-whiz wonder of it all has spawned its own media-age legal phenomenon known as the “CSI effect.” Jurors routinely afford confident scientific experts an almost mythic infallibility because they evoke the bold characters from crime dramas. The real world of forensic science, however, is far different. America’s forensic labs are overburdened, understaffed and under intense pressure from prosecutors to produce results. According to a 2005 study by the Department of Justice, the average lab has a backlog of 401 requests for services. Plus, several state and city forensic departments have been racked by scandals involving mishandled evidence and outright fraud.

There’s no reason to trust the police one iota more than you would trust a complete stranger, and there’s every reason to put very severe restrictions on what we consider “evidence.”