Iceland Votes "Já" To Proposed News Haven 232
eldavojohn writes "The proposed rules shielding journalists harbored in Iceland are now official. It appears that sites like Wikileaks and Cryptome could have a friendlier home base. For those familiar with the Icelandic tongue, the voting results and legalese. Some of the details can be found at www.immi.is."
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
It would be nice to get something like this in the US.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it mods, why is this funny? It really would be nice to have this in the US.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it mods, why is this funny?
Commonly called absurdist humor [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
...The idea that the US already had this, or the idea that they might actually get it?
Fixed that for you.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe sad and ironic because freedom of the press had been one of our hard fought for and cherished American institutions. This was back when journalists investigated and reported on stories, not just plagarized them, or made them up entirely. This was also before News who's job was to inform became Entertainment who's job was to grab ratings from other reality shows.
Similar institutions include the now crumbling protections formerly afforded to whistleblowers.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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Privacy requires censorship.
And one man's news is another man's invasion of privacy.
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And one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Do you have a point, or do you want us to spout cliches at each other all day?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
One man's cliche is another man's peak of insightfulness.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wake up America! (Score:5, Insightful)
And nobody should know about abuses of power either. Gosh, if the American public ever found out why so much of the world hates them, what would happen then?!?
Terrorists attacked the USA, and the people have no idea why. You think "Freedom hating bastards! That's why they did it!" Perhaps if the American people understood that the government that (mis)represents them is what is getting otherwise innocent Americans killed, then it could stop.
Please Americans, you need to pull your head out of your asses! For your own good as well as the rest of us. Blind Patriotism chanting "we're number one" does not make it so. If you only knew how far from number one you actually are, you could do something about it. Reclaim that title. America was wonderful, and a land of the free. So much has been lost, and ignorance of so much around you will erode what little is left. I fear it may already be too late. I hope it is not.
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"I happen to know the real reason but you seem to think you know so why don't you tell us. I seriously want to see if you are actually the suffering the "ignorance of so much around you" that you want to claim is others problems."
Do go on, please, I'm intrigued to hear what this real reason you supposedly know is.
Personally I always figured it was because America had been fucking around in those terrorists homelands for about the last 50 years in some cases keeping said countries unstable, or imposing their
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God I love feeding the trolls some days.
Really? So when some idiot steals a bunch of your personal information, posts it on the web or sells it and claims it he was a journalist, and your bank accounts end up empty ... you're okay with that?
So you're okay when some idiot steals your personal information, uses it to better himself, but you have no proof because everything regarding it becomes censored material?
Or when someone steals some internal memos detailing the troop movements that also happen to include your brothers sqad in Iraq ... which promptly gets him killed ... you're okay with that?
So when your brother gets killed by intentional friendly fire in Iraq and instead of dealing with the matter, the government sweeps it under the rug and no one hears about it?
Censorship is a fact of life. Not everyone needs to know everything about everyone else. If you disagree, please post all your credit cards and any identification numbers you have.
If you think Censorship is good, then please stop talking, because it will inevitably be deleted by a mod in a little while anyways. There is no point in even posting an opinion since it'll just get censored. Now we're wasting bandwidth
In my experience those who scream loudest about how censorship is bad are those that are the most ignorant of the meaning of the word.
censorship /snsrp/ –noun
1.the act or practice of censoring.
2.the office or power of a censor.
3.the time during which a censor holds office.
4.the inhibiting and distorting activity of the Freudian censor.
You wouldn't last very long in the world if you didn't censor yourself. You'd be unemployed, lonely, and have no support from anyone around you ever.
I'm so sick of idiotic morons such as yourself who think things like Wikileaks are good.
You wouldn't last very long in the world if you censored everything either. You'd be uneducated, ignorant, and have no where to turn for support on anything. You'd probably live a life of slavery because you wouldn't know any better.
Journalists can not be trusted any more than politicians, they have an agenda as well. They don't care about what will happen when they 'spread the news' only that they get credit for doing so and just completely ignore all the consequences and side effects of the stupid shit they do.
So if we agree that all journalists and politicians are corrupt, what does it matter what they do? Censor or not, its journalism?
This isn't about getting the information to the people, this is about letting journalists do whatever they want under the guise of providing useful information to the people.
Which would be like how letting things go completely censored would be like letting politicians do what they want under the guise that its for your own good, but you can't know what they're doing.
Again I say, if you think this is a good idea, then start posting all your personal information and identity numbers/photos, please make sure to include your cell phone sim card info, credit/bank cards, home address, work schedule so I know when to rob you, passwords to your email accounts and any other security feature you may have.
Wait, I forget how this is related. how about, if you think Censorship is a good idea, you give ME all your info, and we'll see if anyone comes along to censor it. After all, censoring yourself is completely different from censoring someone else.
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
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That would be much better if your ID was SithMonkeedude1212.
is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
But they get stuff for their tax money. Instead of here were we get almost the same tax rate, but no healthcare, shitty roads, no real social services to speak of and a government that passes laws for the highest bidder.
You may not like high taxes, but I would prefer high taxes and services to slightly lower taxes but nothing in exchange.
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Yeah... true... with a shitload of cash in your wallet, you'll be doing fine dying in the desert or on an island.
Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Informative)
Being half-Greek, I think you'll find that Greece's bankruptcy has more to do with being Greece than with being socialist. It's not even particularly socialist in practice. There's a huge private sector that pays effectively 0% taxes, and even the officially free health care in practice operates as quasi-private--- doctors work 2nd private practices outside their official jobs, and they uh, strongly suggest that you make an appointment with that one rather than with the free one. Oh, and they don't pay taxes on those private practices, either (cash-only payments, no receipts, no reporting).
If Greece were more like Sweden, where rich people actually pay taxes, public services that are officially provided are actually provided, etc., its budget, and the country in general, would be in better shape.
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Indeed, Greece's problem is that Greece had/still has no industry and was relying on tourism for most of it's income. When the GFC hit 90% of this money stopped coming in. Now Greece could not stop spending when it could keep borrowing, so in my reconing at least 51% of the blame falls on the bond holders who kept giving Greece money rather then recongising the credit risk and denying
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Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which is why most of the Nordic states and all of the Scandinavian nations are not knee deep in debt. Yet the capitalist nations like the US and UK are. Someone has been brainwashed here and it's not me and the GP.
It seemed the "socialist" nations balanced the books and survived the GFC. BTW, I'm using your definition of socialism, which means any nations that has social serv
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Troll harder. The problem is corruption; People aren't paying the existing taxes.
Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling socialism a Ponzi scheme gets you +1, Informative? Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to provide freely available healthcare to everyone of the same or greater quality than private healthcare, and at a lower cost, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to properly educate children to ensure that they can be productive members of society when they grow up, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to properly regulate companies so they don't do retarded, short-sighted shit that causes fucking global economic meltdowns, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is nowhere near "a Ponzi scheme".
Take your head out of your ass. There are plenty of countries far more socialist than the US that are, by multiple metrics, far better places to live than the US. If you think far less government is the solution, you are absolutely insane.
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From my point of view (quite close to Nordic areas) - ok, I pay slightly lower taxes, great. Those that are collected are used worse; too much waste around.
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Yes, I guess taxes are high, but then health care is as good as free and studying at the university is free and I'm sure there are plenty of other nice things taxes help buy us.
If you want to experience the wonders of (limited) socialism, you might want to visit soon, since the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening. Free market is pretty much the norm in peoples minds in Sweden too and we are selling out our commons.
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how about we pull and exchange, export all those that want more free market to USA, import all that wants a degree of socialism?
as for universities being free, i cant speak for the swedish model, but the norwegian one is one of a government provided loan that will start picking up interest the day you stop studying for whatever reason.
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I'd really like to see a lower VAT though. 25% (except for food and books) is r
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You should go with Belgium instead. With 15% VAT, they have the lowest one in the EU.
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Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well...unfortuntelly, reality has a socialist bias.
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I'm not trying to be snarky, I am just not sure what you're trying to state by saying reality has a bias.
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The parent may be referring to our ancestry, which evolved to a point where it was better not to kill members of your own species*, but to help them instead. The Greater Good and all that.
*Except anyone outside the monkey sphere. I'm not saying I subscribe to the idea but it does seem interesting.
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I'm just curious, what exactly did you mean by this comment?
Perhaps he meant that everything seems to be "socialist" today if you pay attention to people who seem to think socialism is another word for "evil." For instance, at this moment, someone is probably putting the finishing touches on a protest sign calling BP socialist, possibly while misspelling the word socialist.
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He's making a play on Colbert's comment at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner:
Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.
As a general point, "reality has a well known ______ bias" is an absurdist's explanation for why reality refuses to support an unpopular ideology.
The GP was pointing out both the prevalence of "socialist" policies throughout the Western world.
The implication being that it's unfortunate that capitalism and the free market haven't taken over yet.
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my reality has a conservative bias, i don't know how yours works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law [wikipedia.org]
* Conservation of energy
* Conservation of linear momentum
* Conservation of angular momentum
* Conservation of electric charge
* Conservation of color charge
* Conservation of weak isospin
* Conservation
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Socialism works in societies where there is a good cooperative spirit and little desire to game the system for one's own goals. Otherwise... you get China and the only one to benefit is the occasional Mao, Pol Pot or Stalin.
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one big problem: winter most of the year.
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Hmm. So a country that focuses on benefits for society turns out to be better for members of the society that individuals choose to join, than a country that simply focuses on individuals who might individually make poor decisions about their own needs. Funny how that works, eh?
Re:is it just me? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but you don't get ridiculous jail time for minor drug possessions. It's a tradeoff.
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Scandinavia is quite harsh on drugs compared to western Europe in general. OTOH they don't have US-style craziness where bizarre legal contortions turn someone caught with weed into a co-conspirator to every crime ever committed by the international drug cartels.
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You have much to learn about checking facts instead of repeating myths.
Re:is it just me? (Score:4, Funny)
See, you shouldn't have said that. Icebears in the street is a good thing.
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So where DO you keep the Icebears?
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And no, we don't have icebears in the streets.
You have streets?? ~
The Real Story (Score:5, Informative)
I would like to correct some popular myths that suicide rates are supposedly high in Scandinavia.
The following material illustrates that Scandinavia is at approximately the same levels as the US. In fact in some aspects the rates are lower in some Scandinavian countries. Norway has lower rates for male suicides than the US (15.7 vs 17.7).
Suicides per 100,000 people per year: [wikipedia.org]
Scandinavian countries:
Denmark 11.9
Norway 11.5
Sweden 13.2
North American countries:
United States of America 11.0
Canada 11.3
Nordic countries:
Iceland 11.2
Finland 18.8
P.S. Finland is not Scandinavian because of its ethnic, historical and cultural background. In my opinion Finland has much more in common with its eastern neighbor, Russia, and the Baltic states. The supposedly higher alcohol consumption and cultural differences could be explanations for their higher suicide rates.
Like Finland Iceland is not considered part of Scandinavia but the wider "Nordic" category due to differences in geography and language. The three Kingdoms (DK/NO/SE) share closer ties in a historical political, economic and cultural union.
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Actually, Finland has little in common with Russia and most Baltic countries as well.
Another similarly sized country they have most in common with? Hungary. Yes, the Hungary which is separated by the Baltic Sea, Poland and Czech from them. They are a completely distinct ethnic group the Finno-Ugric peoples [wikipedia.org], than about all the rest of europe (which is Indo-European).
It's a different culture, wildly different (and horribly difficult) language, different mentality. Most of countries around are either Slavic o
Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at the dollar's current valuation, that doesn't surprise me.
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The dollar's current valuation? Compared to what, the krona? [google.com] Euros? [yahoo.com] Pounds sterling? [yahoo.com] Canadian dollars? [yahoo.com] Yen? [yahoo.com]
Maybe it should surprise you..... I mean, if you're in Australia [yahoo.com] you have an excuse...
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USD is chep, GBP is cheap, AUD is cheap, CAD is cheap, ISK is cheap.... everything is cheap! And EUR is declining at a good rate as well.
Best regards,
Norway!
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At beer's current valuation, it doesn't surprise me.
Re:is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Off topic: A funny detail is, that Nordic countries have this unofficial (maybe even official) agreement that in acute medical cases, citizens of other Nordic countries are taken care of for free, basically with no questions asked. No need to show travel insurance or anything, applies to operations, x-rays etc.
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Oh, you mean racially homogeneous like the Netherlands that also have a social system quite similar to their fellow Nordic countries and lot's of emigrants?
By your chain of though, the most "racially homogeneous" (hot news man, there are not races amongst humans, there are only ethnics) of all countries in Europe, Poland should be a socialist heaven, right? Well, take a look at them.
I love when you Americans try to find excuses for why socialism in a moderate degree works better than the system you have jus
Re:but just for people that look just like me! (Score:5, Informative)
Racially homogeneous? You have no idea what you're talking about. In Sweden, around 12% of the population are first generation immigrants, of which around 75% are from non-Western countries.
That's much higher than the average for Europe, with around 6% immigrants, and about the same as in the US (38 million first generation immigrants out of 307 million in 2009).
Looking at the largest Scandinavian cities, Oslo and Stockholm both have around 25% immigrants, most of whom are from non-Western countries. Compared to where I live in the US, I am the one living in a racially homogeneous area, with more than 96% crackers.
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Where did you find that particular statistic?
I can find one that points out the number of people born in foreign countries [www.scb.se], which is 14.3% for 2009 (1,337,965 people), but not anything about where they're from.
If I do an extraction of data of people born in foreign countries, and I remove the EU countries I can remember, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada and Iceland, I end up with
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Racially homogeneous? You have no idea what you're talking about.
Hush now. It's just the standard American Idiot response to these discussions. It comes out like clockwork Every. Single. Time. some facts/statistics are cited which point to <<non US country>> being better in the league tables of <<any quality of life indicator whatsoever>>.
Please don't burst their cute little bubble of everywhere in Europe being essentially a single extended family of identical-looking smiling brothers and sisters. Without that as an excuse for why they have po
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But the beer costs $10 a glass.
Well, sometimes going cheaper by buying pre-owned isn't always the best choice.
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Re:is it just me? (Score:4, Funny)
But the beer costs $10 a glass.
They have much to learn about balancing the needs of the people and the needs of the state.
"Hey Svend, you'll never guess what I got this crazy American to pay for a beer ..."
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On the other hand, it's real beer.
Bandwagon anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bandwagon anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
They did this because Wikileaks posted bank records for one of their failing banks which showed they were transferring billions of dollars out into safe havens as they were going down. Seeing as how the big bank fiasco tanked their economy they didn't take to kindly to this misappropriation of funds and decided Wikileaks was a good thing.
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Is there really big money in catering to sites like cryptome and wikileaks?
Depends on your business model. If you have targeted ads, you might do well.
A well placed antacid advertisement might just hook a scumbag CEO reading about himself.
An amazon associate link to The Book of Virtues [amazon.com] probably wouldn't go over so well to the same CEO.
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NYT or WaPo could probably pull a nice one by leaking finds to wikileaks or similar, and then writing a article about some leak from a unknown source to wikileaks. Basically, as long as it cant be proven that they did the leak, they both get to blow the whistle, and wash their hands by pointing the finger at a third party.
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yeah, i wonder if fallout from people shifting to Iceland servers will result in countries shutting down their transoceanic fibre links in retaliation.
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Seems like the should promote themselves as a location for "passive cooling" and offer carbon credits or something equivalent.
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err, the rules are not yet official (Score:5, Informative)
The proposal to draft some rules is now official. The rules themselves will now be drafted by a committee, and then the committee will present them to the legislature, which may then in the future enact them. The proposal is indeed promising, as is the strong (unanimous) support for tasking the committee with fleshing it out, but what exactly the committee will come back with could vary quite a bit.
Gunboat Diplomacy (Score:2, Funny)
Nothing a little Gunboat Diplomacy couldn't resolve.
Iceland = Hoth? (Score:2)
EU membership will undo this (Score:5, Interesting)
That will probably be all undone as a condition to EU membership (which I think is inevitable at this point).
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> That will probably be all undone as a condition to EU membership
Why?
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Why?
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Because the EU is an anti-democratic, lobbyist-ridden clusterfuck.
Re:EU membership will undo this (Score:5, Funny)
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What are you talking about? Check the world stats for freedom of the press [wikipedia.org]. EU countries are ALL, either less restrictive than USA or at most, some are equally restrictive.
I know things are not perfect around here when you go on a country by country basis in southern European countries and Eastern European, but most of the laws and directives of the EU commission are quite good ones for the normal citizen, you can see they are not there just to defend the rich ones.
But mostly and what shows me that you don'
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Perhaps, but you have to remember the Iceland is in hock to the tune of billions of Euros to the United Kindgom in particular. They are only surviving because the markets are expecting them to join the EU. Failure to do so will make Greece look like a nice holiday.
A dull yawn peirces the night... (Score:2)
This feels familiar somehow.... (Score:2, Funny)
Now if only Iceland hid some forgotten caches of WW2-era war-gold then it would be the perfect placr to build The Crypt [wikipedia.org]
I live in New Haven... (Score:2, Funny)
A good idea for Iceland (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or make big corporations bully you into giving up said freedom. And ruin your economy as you resist.
For how long? (Score:2)
How long will they be able to resist the strong arm tactics of the WTO and UN.
Forgive my ignorace, (Score:2)
Doesn't the U.S. already have a law protecting journalists?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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problem is that big media and US government seems to be walking hand in hand these days.
end result being that whats good for big media is good for the "elected" rulers of USA.
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maybe if the military actually prosecuted the criminals in their ranks and repudiated their behavior publicly rather than covering it up, maybe then the remaining, well-intentioned troops would be safer and the populaces of our satraps might have some small reason to believe we're there to help them rather than to subjugate them and take their stuff. and maybe leaks like this provide disincentive for the government to circle the wagons and keep cancerous elements in the ranks.
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