#474 - Today's News...

Story #1: Researchers at a University of Toronto lab are working on a program called Psiphon to help those who live in communist/dictatorship countries such as China to cryptically receive information, hopefully bypassing their country's firewalls used to block said information. I'm torn with this idea. On the one hand it doesn't seem right, to me, to have their people controlled in such a way, forever keeping the people of China, for example, from learning much about the world. On the other hand it also isn't up to westerners to try to dictate what's right either. And also there's another problem: people caught will definitely be punished and fined heavily for bypassing their firewall. Story #2: The videogame 'Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure' has been banned in Australia. The Australian government cites that it will "promote graffiti." I believe much like the violent videogames thing, I doubt anyone who didn't plan on graffiting would suddenly up and want to do so just because they see it in a video game. You're giving videogames too much power. One thing the government doesn't realize is the majority of gamers are 30+ years old (can a child really afford thousands of dollars in games per year, or would parents really spend that much just so their kid can waste their life?), and while there may be exceptions, I'm sure most are mature enough at that age not to copycat such things. Oy mite, yet anutha reedickulus deecision. I would have brought up the whole Cheney hunting accident but I'm afraid I have too many conspiracy theories on it, and I'd rather not give people the chance to think I'm more crazy than I already really am. ;)