The Internet as You Know It Will Cease to Exist

Arthur Silber
November 4, 2009

Hey, relax. It's not going to be the end of the world -- but as my headline says, in time it may be the end of the internet as you know it.

Cory Doctorow:

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

Doctorow has pulled out two additional provisions, which are similarly bad. (On the first point above, I'm not at all sure that Doctorow's argument regarding Flickr, YouTube and Blogger necessarily follows from the preceding sentence, although I certainly understand his reasoning. In any case, the provision is still remarkably bad. It's also extremely vague: what precisely does "proactively police" mean and require? Perhaps it's spelled out in the full document. But unquestionably very bad.)

Over the last several years, we've all heard claims like the following very often. I state it in general terms, to try to capture its various iterations. But you're all familiar with how it goes in essence: "The truly great thing about the internet is that it means tyranny will never succeed the way it could in the past. Almost everyone will have access to information about everything! The people are empowered as never before. Despotic, authoritarian government is therefore consigned to the dust bin of history." Et cetera, and so on, and you can even put whipped cream and a dozen cherries on top of that.

Only a cursory review of history would indicate that claims of this kind are offered with deadening regularity. Every new invention will change things forever! Each significant development means that life will never again be the same! In the area of recent technology alone (recent in historic terms, if not in the spans of time most people seem capable of retaining, which reach approximately three months max), Life and The Whole Universe were permanently altered, like, forever, man, 'cuz of the radio, then teevee, then cable teevee, then VCRs, then digital, then blahblahblabbityblah ... and then ... TA DA! THE INTERNETZ!

Get a grip. Psychology, human nature and, more particularly, the dynamics of power and social organization alter only over very, very long periods of time. In certain respects, they don't change at all. A few of us might hope they would change and that entirely new ways of interrelating and organization would be found (see, "Contemplating a Different World"), but that's a very long-term project. I mean, long-term.

And to circle back to this particular example, if you understood the possibilities that might be realized by the internet, do you seriously think those people and interests possessing the most power and wealth did not? Yes, we're all special and unique and all that keen stuff, but the ruling class is people, too (revolting thought, I understand, but also true). And the ruling class is not stupid. It is certainly not stupid about this kind of thing. So our betters will do everything in their power to harness and redirect every advance to their own purposes. Again, consult history. This is always the pattern.

Some of the comments to Doctorow's post are intriguing. Here's one that I thought cleverly captured part of the forces operating here:

Look folks, if this copyright treaty means protecting Mickey Mouse from unauthorized reproductions, then it's a small price to pay to forever risk losing access to civic participation, health information, education, registration and renewal of government documents, global communication, access to government, weather and traffic, emergency service information, freedom of speech and assembly....

Obeisance to the Mickster is an eternal value. I mean, dude, eternal.

But here's the good news. Just as claims that the invention of the globbekgortz will catapult us all into the gabillionth dimension are overblown, so too predictions that this trade agreement, as abominable as it appears to be, will cause all the universes to self-destruct within the next few seconds go just a tad too far. Just a tad, you know? Here's a comment that speaks to that point:

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE!!!

Just open your wireless port, call it parasite.net, and then set yourself up as an 'ISP' with an FTP, web server, torrent tracker, etc. If you can convince enough people in your area to create access points and mirrors of the content we'll eventually cut out the telecoms and have a truly distributed data and communications network. Isn't that right Cory?

This might be rephrased, using what I view as a critical guideline for future action in many areas of our lives: Go local.

If you want to resist the oppressive power of the criminal large banks that are now sustained and even further enlarged in large part with your tax money, as they increasingly impoverish our own lives: Go local. Avoid the large banks, and find a good, much smaller one. (Of course, part of what's going on is that the large financial companies in conjunction with the immense power of the federal government -- thanks, Obama! -- are trying to wipe the smaller banks out of existence altogether. But they haven't fully succeeded in that effort, not yet.)

Buy your food from farms or co-ops in your area, to the extent you can. Go local. In part, this was the possibility I indicated in "Contemplating a Different World," and in the earlier, "The Tale that Might Be Told."

So even if the worst realities suggested by these treaty provisions come to pass, other possibilities will be identified and explored. In time, some of those possibilities will be realized. And then the whole process will be repeated again.

The tune changes, but the dance goes on. As any number of posts here indicate, I'm obviously not in the least denying that the ruling class is largely, if not exclusively, populated by vicious bastards, and I'm certainly not minimizing the profoundly horrifying level of devastation and suffering they cause. But the dance goes on.

We'll have to learn some new steps. That's always the way it works. That is, as we say, life. And that's a very good thing.

Hamas want Britain to make amends for crimes against Palestine

November 4, 2009

Hamas marked the 92nd anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration by recalling the misery of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and insisting that European states in general and Britain in particular make amends for the crimes committed against Palestine.

It is worth reminding ourselves from time to time what started the trouble all those years ago. Arabs know the details only too well, but you would be surprised how the British people are kept in ignorance. The history of the Arab-Israeli struggle is seldom taught in schools and our politicians are afraid to talk freely about it.

To all intents and purposes the fuse to the present powder-keg was lit by the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, on 2 November 1917 in a letter to the most senior Jew in England, Lord Rothschild, pledging assistance for the Zionist cause. It was a moment of madness that showed utter disregard for the likely impact on Islamic sensibilities and the day-to-day lives of those (Muslim and Christian) already living in the Holy Land, and for peace in the region.

This lethal scrap of paper, which called itself a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, actually said… "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities..."

Was Balfour completely off his head? The Allied Powers, in correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali of Mecca, had already promised independence to Arab leaders in return for their help in defeating Germany's ally, Turkey.

But Balfour was a Zionist convert, as were many others in the corridors of power in London at that time. Among them were Lloyd George and, to my dismay, Winston Churchill.

In an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald of 8 February 1920 Churchill is credited with writing: "It has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have now been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project. backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement… If, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire."

Poor Winston’s crystal ball was seriously malfunctioning that day.

Balfour, with eye-watering arrogance, said in justification of his lunatic action: "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land."

Not everyone was fooled by the Zionists. Lord Sydenham warned: "The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country may never be remedied. What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend."

If only more people had listened.

In 1922 Palestine was placed under British mandate. Jewish immigration would be facilitated "under suitable conditions" and a nationality law would allow Jews taking up permanent residence to acquire Palestinian citizenship.

That same year the British government issued a White Paper clarifying the position. The intention was not to turn Palestine as a whole into a Jewish National Home but enable such a Home to be founded within Palestine. The White Paper recorded with satisfaction that, at a meeting of the Zionist Congress at Carlsbad in September 1921, "a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community…"

The White Paper also noted that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, renamed the Palestine Zionist Executive, had no wish to take part in running the country and would not be allowed to share in the government. "Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status."

Fine words, but nobody was taking them on board. From that moment onwards the bully-boys of the Western world behaved increasingly badly and so did the Zionists. It all culminated in the messy 1947 Partition Plan, a corrupt and poorly managed piece of work by the fledgling United Nations, with the bullies twisting the arms of smaller nations in order to steamroller their rotten scheme through.

Zionist Jews had legitimately purchased only 6 percent of Palestinian land and by 1947 accounted for about one-third of the population, yet the UN allocated them 57 percent of the territory with access to two seas. They seized the offer with both hands while the Arabs, who hadn’t been consulted, quite rightly rejected it as unfair. As we all know now – and should have known then, since the extent of the Greater Israel project was widely advertised - this exceedingly generous 57 percent gift just wasn't enough for the greedy Zionists. They wanted the lot, and still do. So for 61 years they have kept the fires of the conflict well stoked while ethnically cleansing each territorial gain at gunpoint.

It is only right that Hamas are making such an appeal to those who have so miserably failed the Holy Land. It does no harm to remind the bloated and corrupted West of its Christian duty even though it long ago abandoned any pretence of honor and principle.

Israel’s evil progress could be halted by simply breaking the siege, if necessary landing humanitarian supplies on Gaza’s beach or providing armed escorts for other ships that wish to do so. That, it seems to me, is the very least we could do. The increasingly effective action by ordinary citizens boycotting Israeli goods should then be matched by government measures, and the screw turned until the economic pain persuades Israel to withdraw behind recognized borders and leave the Palestinians alone.

And if our politicians and leaders cannot free themselves from Israeli influence and act with the necessary decency, they should be helped to pack their bags and clear their desks.

The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula

Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. Most notable among these fossils is the discovery of a new hadrosaur, the Arenysaurus ardevoli, found in Huesca, Spain.

A few million years before the catastrophic event that led to the extinction of dinosaurs (with the exception of birds), several species of hadrosaurs coexisted in the Iberian Peninsula. This is what a Spanish team of paleontologists have demonstrated in a research article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

"The Iberian archeological record is important from an European context due to the quantity and quality of the fossil material discovered," explains Xavier Pereda-Suberbiola, one of the study's authors and a researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU), in an interview with SINC.

The researcher, collaborating with paleontologists from the University of Zaragoza, Valencia, Complutense of Madrid, Autonoma de Barcelona and the Jurassic Museum of Asturias, specifies that the presence of evolved hadrosaurs in Europe could be due to migration from Asia and North America.

"In Europe, primitive hadrosaurs coexist with evolved hadrosaurs, and the persistence of basal members could be due to the insular palaeobiogeography of Europe during the Upper Cretaceous," states the scientist. In addition to the fossils found in the Iberian Peninsula, hadrosaur fossils have been found in the Netherlands, which date back to Late Cretaceous, "although the material is more fragmented than those found in Huesca and Lleida," adds Pereda-Suberbiola.

During that time period, Europe was isolated from other continents and this may have led to the survival of certain lineages. "The European hadrosaur faunas are different from those seen in North America and Asia, which are both dominated by evolved species," explains Pereda-Suberbiola.

Next to the hadrosaurs, identifiable by the fossilized mandibles found in the arechological sites of La Solana (Valencia) and Fontllonga (Lleida), were a lambeosaurine hadrosaurs yet to be defined, and a newly discovered lambeosaurine, the Arenysaurus ardevoli.

An articulated cranium of great value

The study of the last hadrosaurs that lived in the Iberian Peninsula has been possible thanks to the discovery by the Aragosaurus-IUCA Group of the University of Zaragoza, led by Jose Ignacio Canudo, of the first articulated hadrosaur skull found in southern Europe, from the archeological sites of Arén, in Huesca, Spain.

The skull belongs to an Arenysaurus ardevoli, a lambeosaurine (hadrosaur with a hollow cranial crest), whose description was recently published in the French journal Comptes Rendus Palevol, and was part of the Spanish fossil record.

According to paleontologists, the new lambeosaurine lived between 65.5 and 68 million years ago, had a very prominent frontal dome, and its biogeographical relationships suggest a paleobiogeographical connection between Asia and Europe during the Late Cretaceous.

Researchers have found, in addition to the partially articulated skull, the mandibular remains and postcranial elements such as vertebrae, girdle and limb bones.

The Spanish archaeological record of hadrosaurs is the largest in Europe. Out of the 50 locations where dinosaur remains were discovered since 1984, nearly half have been found in Lleida and Huesca. These archeological sites stand out for containing fossils pertaining to several species of duck-billed dinosaurs.

Jordan Islamists urge Arab world to drop hopes about Obama

Amman - Jordan's largest political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Thursday urged Arab countries to stop "betting" on the administration of the US President Barack Obama. The party said its call was prompted by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodhman Clinton having "adopted" the attitude of the right- wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The US administration's adoption of the attitudes of the extremist, Zionist government makes it imperative for Arab countries to review their positions and depend on their own capabilities instead of betting on the will of others to bring about changes," IAF spokesman Mohammad Bozour said in a statement.

"Clinton's statements revealed the false promises of the US administration which tried to sell Arabs mere illusions that failed to stand the first test," he added.

Bozour alluded to Clinton's statement after meeting Netanyahu earlier this week during her regional tour that the Israeli premier was making "unprecedented" concessions regarding the controversial issue of settlement building in East Jerusalem and other occupied Palestinian territories.

Clinton went further to urge Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel even before freezing the construction of settlements which emerged over the past few months as a key Arab and Palestinian demand.

"The humiliating backdown by the US administration versus Netanyahu's stubbornness and going further to praise his attitudes will not help improve the US image vis-à-vis Arab and Islamic peoples, one of the key objectives which Obama sought to accomplish," Bozour said.

Chinese workers struggle in Algeria

November 06, 2009
Abdellah Cheballah

Agence France Presse

ALGIERS: More than 25,000 Chinese work on huge housing projects and cross-country highways in Algeria, but few have any deep contacts with the local population. For more than a decade tens of thousands of Chinese workers have flowed into Algeria, one of the many African nations that have embraced trade and closer political links with China that will be strengthened at a China-Africa summit in Egypt from Sunday.

China became Algeria’s second largest foreign supplier in 2008. Chinese exports reached $2.7 billion, coming from almost nothing in the 1990s. But the language barrier keeps the migrants apart from Algerians.

“The ‘yellow peril’ does not threaten Algeria, the Chinese are well-regarded, despite language and cultural barriers,” said political scientist Rachid Tlemcani.

The government has spent a lot of Algeria’s oil wealth on new homes and infrastructure. Chinese companies have won more than $15 billion worth of those contracts.

“Chinese workers live and work in difficult conditions that many Algerians would not accept, so there is no competition between the two populations. They are part of separate worlds that accept each other,” Tlemcani said.

“These workers are virtually cut off from the Algerian population. They live in basic accommodation set up near the building sites and move around in groups, even when they go shopping,” an Algerian chauffeur for a Chinese construction company said. But there have been tensions.

Since 2002 a number of Chinese have settled in the country, buying clothes shops, jewelers and bazaars, like the Algiers suburb of Bab Ezzouar.

The mini-Chinatown has grown but the harmony was broken in August when a parking dispute escalated into clashes between members of the two communities.

“It was predictable” said one Algerian wholesaler, who complained that his business is surrounded by Chinese shops who have “invaded the area.”

After the clashes the Chinese ambassador called on the Asian migrants to “respect the local laws and customs.”

Leila, who works in a Chinese leather shop, said the tensions were not linked to religion. “Everything is about business.”

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/Nov/06/Chinese-workers-struggle-in-Algeria.ashx.

Algeria pilgrims arrive

JEDDAH: About 36,000 Algerian pilgrims will be performing Haj this year.

Part of an 800-member official Algerian mission came to the Kingdom on Monday to facilitate their arrival, with the rest following soon.

“A large contingent of medical team, will also follow,” Algerian Consul-General Salah Attia told Arab News at his country’s National Day celebration.

The mission would be led by the director-general of the Algerian National Office for Haj and Umrah, Cheikh Barbara, he said.

Speaking at a reception in Jeddah to celebrate the event, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director General for Makkah Region, Muhammad A. Tayeb, highlighted existing strong relations between the Kingdom and Algeria and said there have been a consistent strengthening of bilateral relations through the Saudi-Algerian economic commission, as well as joint venture projects and programs at all levels.

According to the consul-general, trade between the two countries has also been steadily expanding. “There has been a regular flow of investments into Algeria from the Kingdom,” he said, adding that Saudis have shown great interest in hospitality and industrial projects, in particular agro-industries.

Frigid Antarctica Loaded with Viruses By Rachael Rettner, Staff Writer

Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse community of viruses, including some that were previously unidentified.

At first glance, Antarctica's freshwater lakes don't seem very hospitable to life. They remain frozen for a good nine months out of the year, and they contain very few nutrients. Some of these lakes have little animal life and are dominated by microorganisms, including algae, bacteria, protozoans and viruses.

With few animal and microbial predators around, viruses likely play an important role in controlling the abundance of other microorganisms, the researcher say. However, these viruses have been historically hard to study since many cannot be grown in a laboratory. But thanks to new genome sequencing technology, scientists can identify viruses without needing to grow them.

"We are just starting to uncover the world of viruses, and this is changing the way we think about viruses and the role they play in microbial ecosystems," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish Research Council.

A virus is little more than a package of DNA surrounded by a capsule structure. To survive, viruses must hijack, or infect, living cells and use the host's equipment to replicate.

Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected from Antarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.

The results reveal this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological diversity due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists speculate the newly discovered viruses may have adapted specifically to thrive in such harsh conditions.

The team also found the community of viruses changed dramatically depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, the liquid water under the ice was inhabited by mostly small viruses, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.

"It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the shift might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which the larger viruses infect.

The researchers hope to figure out whether any of the viruses are unique to Antarctica. If so, that would shed light on whether microbial life evolved independently in Antarctica, which has been isolated for millions of years, or they were introduced there more recently.