Lights continue to dim across The Blogosphere

Already a place of barely flickering freedom, as reported by the BBC, China with the help of an American company cracks down on the thing that all totalitarians fear: free expression.

Weblog entries on some parts of Microsoft's MSN site in China using words such as "freedom", "democracy" and "demonstration" are being blocked.

Chinese bloggers already face strict controls and must register their online journal with Chinese authorities.

Sound familiar? It starts with registration. Like a junkie hooked on a narcotic, once a Power gains more control, it desires ever more control – and will find any justification to get it.

Also being restricted on the free parts of the site are journal entries that mention "human rights" and "Taiwan independence".

Those using these banned words or writing entries that are pornographic or contain sensitive information get a pop-up warning that reads: "This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression."

Where is Mr. Orwell when you need him. Isn’t that phrase precious? “..Please delete this expression.” Indeed.

China recently introduced stringent regulations that require all blog owners to register their web journal with the state by 30 June.

The regulations require the writer of a blog to identify themselves to the authorities.

According to Reporters Without Borders, China is using a system called Night Crawler to patrol web journals and make sure that only registered blogs are published. Unregistered blogs will be shut down.

China today. Tomorrow?

"It is all very well to have high-minded ideals about how you want the Chinese to behave, but opposing China is going to be counter-productive."

"Microsoft is being pragmatic in its approach," said Mr Makower. "It is not up to it to make political statements."

Of course not Mr. Makeover…errr…Makower. We must be pragmatic. We don’t want to be counter-productive. Who needs high-minded ideals? Mr. Makower, freshen up your resume; I hear IG Farben and Krupp are hiring. You would fit in perfectly.

Tuesday Funnies

Hat tip Tim Graham at The Corner.

Retreat from the MilBlog high-water mark

John at Argghhh!!! has a link to the MNC-I (Iraq) Policy 39 – Unit and Soldier Owned and Maintained Websites MEMORANDUM outlining the how-what-where of posting for military personnel in Iraq. John judges it as about as fair as can be expected and I won’t argue that point with him.

What I think needs to be considered is that we should judge the day before this MEMO, 05 APR 05, as the high-water mark of deployed MilBlogs.

As stated here before, having your Chain of Command have complete knowledge and access to your webpage/blog and/or postings on other internet based publishing media will put a damper on primary source reporting, opinion, and information flow we are used to in the quick, honest, unvarnished manner we have become accustomed.

I am a very small fish in the MilBlog pond (or flappy bird, or adorable rodent – take your pick) but even as an anonoblogger let me tell you what this means to me: If/when I go to the MNC-I AOR, CDR Salamander will go cold iron. That is the only way I can keep CDR Salamander anon and brash as it is and not violate a lawful order. No other option.

On a macro scale, simple Freakonomics will tell you that this burden will result in fewer blogs and diluted content.

I accept the MEMO, don’t have a choice really, but the slack will have to be picked up by the folks not on Active Duty to get the real time stuff out. Speaking for myself, I will continue to follow the MEMO 100 percent. Sigh. Waiting for the Afghanistan version next. Then the CFFC version.

…from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic…

Hat tip The Corner.

Proper trackback etiquette

Dr. Rusty Shackleford along with Lockergnome and James McGovern are tilting against what is becoming one of my favorite windmills; Trackback Etiquette. What are the accepted reasons to trackback? Like I posted over at Jawa, to me it seems simple. There are two reasons to trackback.

(1) If you get inspiration from another, trackback with a written acknowledgement.

(2) If you fold comments/ideas (give proper credit) from another into your post, then you should trackback.

Trackback is a way of saying "Hey, I took your idea an added to it, or, I ref'd your post in mine, just wanted to let you know."

One thing I think is wrong, is something I call "Bastard Trackbacks." I get a few trackbacks to posts that,

(1) Have nothing to do with the trackedback post

(2) Don't mention CDR Salamander in any way.

It seems to me, this is someway to increase the trackbacker's traffic from the trackbackees readers. Bastard trackbacks just leave me scratching my head wondering, "why?" If someone wants to bring their post to my attention on a subject that they think I may find of interest, they should email them to me, not trackback on an unrelated subject.

At James McGovern’s post, I found his concern about,

Many conversations don't occur simply because someone is worried about offending someone when in all reality, it is a missed opportunity for two parties to have a meaningful dialog.

a little funny. Few of my commenters have any problem telling me their opinions, and I like to give as well as I get.

Rusty is right, we should agree on manners and follow them. As for me, I’ll keep deleting bastard trackbacks.

---

My bust. That is Chris Short, not Rusty.

Russia's demographic implosion

As an old Cold Warrior, I still have a knee jerk respect for the power of the Russians. For the 21st Century though, the facts are clear that they are a fallen power. A new "weak man of Europe." Sad to watch, and an important lesson for all.

Via Strategypage.com.

The rapidly aging Russian population is not only shrinking, but is not fit for any major economic or military efforts. Some 60 percent of Russians are elderly, children, or disabled. Out of 20 million males of working age, one million are in prison, a million in the armed forces (including paramilitaries), five million are unemployed (or unemployable due to poor education, health or attitude), four million are chronic alcoholics, and a million are drug addicts. Thus there is something of a labor shortage, with plenty of jobs for women and immigrants. The birth rate is below replacement level, and a declining population means more immigrants just to keep things going. Improving medical care, and health habits (especially treating alcoholism and drug use) is a government priority, in order to raise the life span of Russian males. All of this makes the idea of a smaller, all volunteer, military more attractive. Too many of the current troops are drunks, addicted to drugs or just unreliable. Volunteers must be paid much more, but their discipline is much higher. Russian officers are very impressed with what the British, Japanese and Americans have done with all-volunteer armed forces and want to emulate them.

Do the math on that real fast. How many "regular Ivans" are there to support a family and be a productive member of society?

Working age = 20 million
Prison = 1 million
Military = 1 million
Unemployed = 5 million
Cronic Alcoholics = 4 million
Drug Addicts = 1 million

Regular Ivans = 8 million

That is just dad. What are the kids doing? Well lets see what the BBC says.

Some 700,000 children are orphaned or homeless, and 4m use drugs, he added. ... the condition of Russian children and teenagers is comparable with that after the bloody civil war of the 1920s or World War II, when much of the country lay in ruins.

America's best newspaper, IBD, had a good editorial on the coming economic consequences as Putin goes after what little economic freedom there is, and folds in some more demographic nightmares.

Ho bad is it? Since communism fell in 1992, Russia has lost 3% of its population, according to demographer Nicholas Eberstadt. That comes to 5 million people - unprecedented decline that the U.N. estimates will continue well into this century.

The fear of the 10-ft tall Russian soldier is a far, faded memory. This is not going unnoticecd by our friends the Chinese. They are a rising power that needs land and resources. More that that, it has old scores to settle. I don't think they have let the 1858 - the Russian-Chinese Treaty signed in Aigun slip their mind. Do you? Sorry Kim Iskyan at Slate, I don't think that Russia is going to sell it to China.

Sunday Funnies

PS: I should be back onsta by Monday. Busy time.....busy time....

EMCON Bravo

I'm going to be absorbing taxpayer money in unusual places for the next week or so. I should have a little access to the Internet, but not reliable. I'll try to sneak a post or two in - no 100% chance. Check back every couple of days or so, or learn how to use RSS/XML to see when I am tip-tapping again.

Cheers,
-Phibian