California Supreme court, in a 34-page ruling,overturned a lower court decision and unanimously upheld that federal law is clear on insulating Internet providers and Web sites against lawsuits for the inflammatory statements of others. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: November 2006
Smurf and Communism
（转帖）Smurf,《蓝精灵》和共产主义
《蓝精灵》出现于六十年代中期左右，应该说全盛时期就是六、七十年代，众所周知，此时正是西欧左派运动热火朝天之时。西欧的许多知识分子仍然为共产主义或各种版本的社会主义所所深深吸引。据说，《蓝精灵》这个动画片里也带有社会/共产主义思想的深深印记。甚至有人怀疑，《蓝精灵》是作者用以宣传共产主义观念的一种特别的手段——利用文艺形式来达到其政治目标。而《蓝精灵》面对的对象主要是儿童，也就是说，希望在成长中的八九点钟的太阳身上灌输某种共产主义的理想。还有好事者指出，所谓的Smurf实质上是暗示Soviet/Socialist Men Under Red Father （红色父亲领导下的苏维埃/社会主义人民），当然这个说法是占不住脚的，因为在原著里蓝精灵的名字是Schtroumpf，而Smurf只不过是英文翻译。 Continue reading
Why no one speaks against government–A game theory explanation
The answer of the following game theory question sheds light on the issue why no one speaks against government in China.
Question:
Two players, A and B, are bidding in a blind auction. They each write down a bid and give it to me.The winner (higher bid) pays his bid to me and nothing else happens to him. The loser has to give me $10. He does not pay his bid.
Assume for now, that the bids have to be integers. For example, if player A writes $5 and player B writes $3, then player A pays me $5 and player B pays me $10.
In case of a tied bid, I flip a coin to determine the winner. The winner pays the bid, the loser pays $10.
With two rational players, what would their bidding strategies be?
(from Jason’s blog)
bin Laden clames never again attack China
CAMBRIDGE, MA, Nov. 18–al-Qaeda released a video today with Osama bin Laden’s instruction to his followers never again attack China.
The video was released through the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera, again, which said today that it received the latest videotaped message from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at its offices in the Pakistani capital.
Al-Qaeda had sent five terrorists to China, but none of them succeeded, according to the released video. “Nothing is more unproductive than fighting Chinese government,” complained bin Laden, “nothing.”
One of his followers, in black mask, continued to explain,
“We sent five great men to China. The first went to explode a multi-level crossing bridge, but was lost on it and got too dizzy when looking for a way out. The second went to explode a public transportation vehicle (a bus), but it was too crowded for him to get on. The third went to explode a supermarket, but the remote control for the bomb was stolen. The fourth went to explode a business building, but when tried to get in, he was crazily punched by the security and thrown out– ‘Don’t fool me! You are coming to ask for salary, to protest!’ At last the fifth person succeeded to explode a Coal Mine, killed several hundreds and came back. But unfortunately, because his supervisor had not seen any news report from China for a long time, he was executed for lying, according to our discipline manual.”
He concluded, “We are not going to do touch China any more.”
A news spokesperson jumped in, “Latest news,” said him, “our source for this piece was identified by the Gold Shield of Chinese government (an internet info filter), but he managed to escape any way, ” the spokesperson stopped for a second, and then continued, “he claimed he was a joke writer.”
(End)
My Favorate Board Game: Go
Go is a traditional Chinese game.
Rule: Players place alternately black and white stones on the vacant intersections of a 19×19 rectilinear grid. A stone is captured and removed if it is tightly surrounded by stones of the opposing color. The objective is to control a larger territory than the opponent by placing one’s stones so they cannot be captured, but can capture any opposing stones played in one’s territory. The game ends and the score is counted when both players consecutively pass on a turn, indicating that neither side can increase its territory or reduce its opponent’s; the game can also end by resignation.
Just for info:
It is commonly said that no Go game has ever been played twice. Calculations suggest this may be true: on a 19×19 board, there are about 3361×0.012 = 2.1×10170 possible positions, most of which are the end result of about (120!)2 = 4.5×10397 different (no-capture) games, for a total of about 9.3×10567 games. Allowing captures gives as many as
possible games, all of which last for over 4.1×1048 moves.
In comparison, the number of legal positions in chess is estimated to be between 1043 and 1050.
Some Notes on Horwitz
Horwitz talked about “[I]n most general historical studies, fields like torts and contracts… are treated as if they stand apart from content or policy”.
I feel that many Chinese legal scholars are doing exactly what Horwitz criticized. Only, they do it in bad faith (or intentionally, or with contextualized wisdom, whatever), while historians that Horwitz criticized may be genuinely ignorant (it may be true).
Chinese scholars know the opposite opinion, which has long dominated the academia ever since 1949. Such opinion, from Marxism ideology, treats law as part of the state machine, which means the sovereignty could do any change as it wishes. Therefore the prosecutor’s office as well as the court became so-called “sword of the government” with ther major responsibility to help the policy maker maitain the stability of society.
Those scholars who wanted to say no sometimes to the policy maker, namely the communist party, have to insist the independence of law, so that judges may exclude blunt political influence to some limited extent. If they would rather embrace the idea that law can not be independent from policy, when they want to do say no, they have to justify why another policy is better, which ultimately will lead to a different political comittment. It will cause trouble for themselves, either now or in the Mao-era. Therefore, it was the mind control that led to the idea law shall and can be independent from policy.