Night Owls Chatterboxes - Part LXXX
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Originally posted by fudgester:
Uh..... what if I told you guys that I like mine well done?
That's....that's criminal!!!!
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wtf??
Iron Chef America.. it's an.. OATMEAL battle!!!
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
Okay, revealing what the leaders of countries think of one another may not be beneficial to us, but I still do not think relations will be compromised unless the said leaders are in denial. It's an editorial decision the site's operators made and they may not believe in discriminating the information that they get, but I still want them to expose shit like Trafigura and the Iraq war documents.
Getting Assange isn't going to stop Wikileaks, just as killing terrorist leaders hasn't destroyed the groups. What good does it do to keep the wool pulled over our eyes?
P.S. The title of this article is incredulous (and I don't believe in such 'person of the year' awards) but some of the things written resonate: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/39327/julian-assange-man-of-the-year/
well mate, in case you haven't noticed, many of the leaders to our north and south are not only in denial, but also petty and bigoted. I mean, just think back to some of the things they've said openly ? About us, about certain races and religions, about the west ?
And remember a few years back, when our goverment took the unprecendented step of going public with private diplomatic communications with singapore, when najib threatened war with Singapore as m'sian defense minister ?
Gentlemen borne with great responsibilities are usually not concerned with petty issues of course, but you sure everyone in this game is a gentleman ?
And true, killing julian assange would not stop wikileaks, because the damage is already done, but isn't that saying he should not be punished just because it's too late to undo what he's done. Don't we punish a criminal, a murderer, say, for his crime ? Or do we say, heck ! We can't unkill the victim ... so, oh well, nevermind, there's no point in punishing the one responsible, eh ? That dick, and those acting with him, must still be punished, regardless.
We're not Iraq or Afghanistan. So exposing our country's confidential diplomatic maunderings does nothing for the US, or us, except to impede or hinder the people who executes our foreign policy in our country's interest. So it's really just casual mischief or simple malice and bloody-mindedness.
Secondly, the war files.
If you think about it too, what good would it do, really ?
Say for example, one of the cables details a bomb that took out a farmer's hut in afghanistan instead of a bunch of taleban. The US and other allies do care about accidental civvy deaths, not just because it's one of the values that underpins these societies, but also, even if you approach it from a purely operational point of view, it would only push more people towards the side of the group they are trying to defeat.
And in case anyone forgot, it's the same group that flew two planes into two separate towers and killed a bunch of civilians, deliberately, and started this whole shitfest in the first place, a group with no compunction or considerations for mass killing civilians.
But that's the effect of these exposes, each one of these pushes more people towards such people, prolonging the war, causing more casualties, more distrust, more hatred, more "clash of civilizations", more people will certainly die. You know that some fundamentalist websites are already linking and mirroring wikileaks ? ...... well done, assange, eh ?
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Originally posted by the Bear:
wtf??
Iron Chef America.. it's an.. OATMEAL battle!!!
hey, we got our quirky gift ! ....
where did you guys go afterwards ? ....
we wanted to ask if you guys would like to eat at waraku and visit tookie afterwards .....
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Originally posted by fudgester:
Uh..... what if I told you guys that I like mine well done?
*looks on pityingly .....
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Originally posted by Fatum:
hey, we got our quirky gift ! ....
where did you guys go afterwards ? ....
we wanted to ask if you guys would like to eat at waraku and visit tookie afterwards .....
went for a quick hawker centre meal then went home coz my nose was and still is runny
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Okay.... I think I pigged out too much over the past week....
That, and the fact that I didn't run at all thanks to post-marathon aches and stitches....
I gained about 1.2 kilos. Ouch.
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I'm now figuring WikiLeaks will soon degrade into something useless
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Originally posted by Fatum:
well mate, in case you haven't noticed, many of the leaders to our north and south are not only in denial, but also petty and bigoted. I mean, just think back to some of the things they've said openly ? About us, about certain races and religions, about the west ?
And remember a few years back, when our goverment took the unprecendented step of going public with private diplomatic communications with singapore, when najib threatened war with Singapore as m'sian defense minister ?
Gentlemen borne with great responsibilities are usually not concerned with petty issues of course, but you sure everyone in this game is a gentleman ?
And true, killing julian assange would not stop wikileaks, because the damage is already done, but isn't that saying he should not be punished just because it's too late to undo what he's done. Don't we punish a criminal, a murderer, say, for his crime ? Or do we say, heck ! We can't unkill the victim ... so, oh well, nevermind, there's no point in punishing the one responsible, eh ? That dick, and those acting with him, must still be punished, regardless.
We're not Iraq or Afghanistan. So exposing our country's confidential diplomatic maunderings does nothing for the US, or us, except to impede or hinder the people who executes our foreign policy in our country's interest. So it's really just casual mischief or simple malice and bloody-mindedness.
Secondly, the war files.
If you think about it too, what good would it do, really ?
Say for example, one of the cables details a bomb that took out a farmer's hut in afghanistan instead of a bunch of taleban. The US and other allies do care about accidental civvy deaths, not just because it's one of the values that underpins these societies, but also, even if you approach it from a purely operational point of view, it would only push more people towards the side of the group they are trying to defeat.
And in case anyone forgot, it's the same group that flew two planes into two separate towers and killed a bunch of civilians, deliberately, and started this whole shitfest in the first place, a group with no compunction or considerations for mass killing civilians.
But that's the effect of these exposes, each one of these pushes more people towards such people, prolonging the war, causing more casualties, more distrust, more hatred, more "clash of civilizations", more people will certainly die. You know that some fundamentalist websites are already linking and mirroring wikileaks ? ...... well done, assange, eh ?
I'm not protecting Assange. By all means punish him if he acutally did something illegal, but it won't stop the phenomenon and it won't stop espionage. And shouldn't we be putting the blame at the door of the gits we put in power for cover-ups and unjust wars, and not the whistleblowers? Shit will hit the fan sooner or later, but scandals make them happen sooner. Take the case of Enron years ago; it would be ridiculous to blame the auditors for the loss of people's savings and not the accounting failures, wouldn't it? It's the same here if you want to accuse Wikileaks revelations for whatever fallout is to come when politicians already know this stuff through other means.
Transparency in the decision-making process is lacking in governments and organisations and is vital when we want to make informed decisions. Notice that all these revelations (not just the cables) take place after the fact and do not concern future plans? I think that is fair and haven't gone too far to jeopardise security. Let politicians be petty and terrorists already have a vendetta against everyone else and don't need reasons.
Will this actually change anything? Rules will be tightened and politicians and businessmen will have to find other ways to get around them. Although everyone gets an idea of what goes on behind the scenes, most of us know that the shady dealings and hypocrisy will continue in some other form.
The way I see it, you're telling me that Cablegate will throw the world into chaos, as if some kind of fragile peace has been achieved and is going to be shattered. But from my cynical and jaded point of view, that is just a sham. The mistrust and hyporcrisy can't get worse; it's always been that way and will remain as long as humans run the show. Scandals merely open our eyes to what those in power already know and confirm our suspicions as bystanders.
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Originally posted by sbst275:
I'm now figuring WikiLeaks will soon degrade into something useless
That depends on how it emerges from this controversy, what with PayPal and Amazon dropping the site. It's surprising how they did nothing about it when some similarly high-level stuff from Africa was exposed years ago.
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"well mate, in case you haven't noticed, many of the leaders to our north and south are not only in denial, but also petty and bigoted. I mean, just think back to some of the things they've said openly ? About us, about certain races and religions, about the west ?"
I just want to point out that singapore's politicians are hardly squeaky clean. The above could be used to describe them as well. Lau Lee has been known especially to run his mouth off everyhwere he goes.
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
I'm not protecting Assange. By all means punish him if he acutally did something illegal, but it won't stop the phenomenon and it won't stop espionage. And shouldn't we be putting the blame at the door of the gits we put in power for cover-ups and unjust wars, and not the whistleblowers? Shit will hit the fan sooner or later, but scandals make them happen sooner. Take the case of Enron years ago; it would be ridiculous to blame the auditors for the loss of people's savings and not the accounting failures, wouldn't it? It's the same here if you want to accuse Wikileaks revelations for whatever fallout is to come when politicians already know this stuff through other means.
Transparency in the decision-making process is lacking in governments and organisations and is vital when we want to make informed decisions. Notice that all these revelations (not just the cables) take place after the fact and do not concern future plans? I think that is fair and haven't gone too far to jeopardise security. Let politicians be petty and terrorists already have a vendetta against everyone else and don't need reasons.
Will this actually change anything? Rules will be tightened and politicians and businessmen will have to find other ways to get around them. Although everyone gets an idea of what goes on behind the scenes, most of us know that the shady dealings and hypocrisy will continue in some other form.
The way I see it, you're telling me that Cablegate will throw the world into chaos, as if some kind of fragile peace has been achieved and is going to be shattered. But from my cynical and jaded point of view, that is just a sham. The mistrust and hyporcrisy can't get worse; it's always been that way and will remain as long as humans run the show. Scandals merely open our eyes to what those in power already know and confirm our suspicions as bystanders.
well mate, as I've pointed out with, with our own diplomatic cables and the war files, is such exposes always a "good thing" ?
Let's review some of the leaks, yet again, shall we ? How does a cable describing the pope (and that's our pope hey), as a doddering old fart, constitute whistle blowing ? How does the exposing of our confidential diplomatic maunderings, telling other people things as we saw it, contribute to the public good, other than to compromise the efficacy of our diplomats, acting in our country's interests, vis-a-vis those fellows and their countries the diplomats have commented about ?
Wikileaks likes to pretend to be a whistle blower, but so far, it's more like a malicious, bong smoking kid sniggering at the casual mischief he's caused. To compare it to the enron whistle blowers ? Okay, let's see it from your perspective.
Now don't you think that the sort of casual mischief from wikileaks has actually compromised future, real and much more important whistle blowing from happening ? You're right, nothing has really changed, people who are cynical and jaded are still so, if a little more, terrorists who hate us still do, if a little more,
So whatever wikileaks has done, nothing has changed for the better, no ? But what has gotten worse ?
Well, julian assange, you've really achieved nothing more than high-light the security failings of various goverments and bodies around the world,ensuring that they'll learn from this, tightening up their information security. They are going to clam up tighter, hide the information they have, and the things they do better. Goverments of countries like Iran, China, and North Korea and various autocratic regimes around the world, will also learn from this, realizing the dangers of the internet. They'll work on more restrictions, monitor traffic and what people do online more closely, filtering, banning more sites. Freedom of information, freedom of speech ? You've just undermined it for a couple of billion people. *Claps* You've just made sure that when someone does something truly bad again and really requires a REAL whistle blowing, it would be so much harder.
The irony ! .............
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Originally posted by sbst275:
I'm now figuring WikiLeaks will soon degrade into something useless
or some source of news that you will never get to know even the day you die -
Originally posted by Fatum:
well mate, as I've pointed out with, with our own diplomatic cables and the war files, is such exposes always a "good thing" ?
Let's review some of the leaks, yet again, shall we ? How does a cable describing the pope (and that's our pope hey), as a doddering old fart, constitute whistle blowing ? How does the exposing of our confidential diplomatic maunderings, telling other people things as we saw it, contribute to the public good, other than to compromise the efficacy of our diplomats, acting in our country's interests, vis-a-vis those fellows and their countries the diplomats have commented about ?
Wikileaks likes to pretend to be a whistle blower, but so far, it's more like a malicious, bong smoking kid sniggering at the casual mischief he's caused. To compare it to the enron whistle blowers ? Okay, let's see it from your perspective.
Now don't you think that the sort of casual mischief from wikileaks has actually compromised future, real and much more important whistle blowing from happening ? You're right, nothing has really changed, people who are cynical and jaded are still so, if a little more, terrorists who hate us still do, if a little more,
So whatever wikileaks has done, nothing has changed for the better, no ? But what has gotten worse ?
Well, julian assange, you've really achieved nothing more than high-light the security failings of various goverments and bodies around the world,ensuring that they'll learn from this, tightening up their information security. They are going to clam up tighter, hide the information they have, and the things they do better. Goverments of countries like Iran, China, and North Korea and various autocratic regimes around the world, will also learn from this, realizing the dangers of the internet. They'll work on more restrictions, monitor traffic and what people do online more closely, filtering, banning more sites. Freedom of information, freedom of speech ? You've just undermined it for a couple of billion people. *Claps* You've just made sure that when someone does something truly bad again and really requires a REAL whistle blowing, it would be so much harder.
The irony ! .............
I'll say it again, it's not my decision to discriminate between what information to reveal and what information to keep. But taking down the entire thing isn't right because I still want to know about Trafigura, and so on. And you realise that internet hacking is only one way of getting information too, right? Short of banning the internet altogether, the internet is difficult to police. The target is always moving and the leak will appear elsewhere, sooner or later, on a scale that may be smaller than Wikileaks.
Leaks or no leaks, we're still fucked. No leaks, the rot continues and we remain blissfully ignorant until the shit hits the fan; leak it and it just goes deeper, only to resurface later through another lapse. I'd rather know about it and have myths debunked and my suspicions confirmed.
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
I'll say it again, it's not my decision to discriminate between what information to reveal and what information to keep. But taking down the entire thing isn't right because I still want to know about Trafigura, and so on. And you realise that internet hacking is only one way of getting information too, right? Short of banning the internet altogether, the internet is difficult to police. The target is always moving and the leak will appear elsewhere, sooner or later, on a scale that may be smaller than Wikileaks.
Leaks or no leaks, we're still fucked. No leaks, the rot continues and we remain blissfully ignorant until the shit hits the fan; leak it and it just goes deeper, only to resurface later through another lapse. I'd rather know about it and have myths debunked and my suspicions confirmed.
Yes, I know you aren't mate, but, So what sort of rot are we talking about ? What sort of myths were exploded when some state department bureaucrat describes the pope as a doddering old fart and that tommy koh thinks japan is a big fat loser ? What good was done, really, when something like this is exposed ?
Well, one example is the anwar cable. So .... our side told the aussies that anwar was really a brokebacker, and he was the poker, not the pokee, no less, but the whole thing was an entrapment, and the chap walked right into it, based on "technical intelligence". Prime juicy tabloid material. People on both sides read about it in the papers, sniggers, and forget about it by next week. But what of the strategic ramications ? Now the northern chaps know their communications are being intercepted by us, that their security has likely been compromised by our operatives. What do you think is going to happen next, beyond tommy koh's red face at his KL trip next week ? What do you think this means for the interests of our country ?
Whistle blowing is when, say, a singaporean leaks news that some minstar was embezzeling millions of dollars, or that certain HDB blocks were certified unsafe but hushed up, but if a Singaporean leaked this anwar cable, he won't be whistle blowing, he would be a traitor, period.
the difference here is that while you say, since responsible freedom of information and freedom of speech is just about impossible, let's just do away with any sort of policing altogether, and let everything and anything goes, a little good, outweights the bad and the ugly ?
But I say, regardless, irresponsible freedom of speech and information could have very serious ramifications for the very societies that supports these values. So there must be lines in the sand, and those who crossed it must be stopped and punished.
Don't get me wrong, whistle blowing is fine, maybe even neccessary, except that in this very case, most of the leaks weren't even whistle blowing at anything at all, but exposes of who said what of whom a la supermarkets sunday tabloids. And that is the whole point here. Wikileaks isn't really whistle blowing, it's really satisfying people's thirst for scandals and sordid dirt, and it has also demonstrated very poor judgement of what to do with the materials it has illegally obtained, if not an outright malicious agenda aimed only at nose-thumbing the world's authorities. Do you think you can trust it to exercise responsible freedom of speech, and information ? To put it on the same pedestal as other individuals who risked their lives, career and reputation at exposing something of real import, well, that's just making a mockery of those people, isn't it ?
But of course, at the end of the day, as I've pointed out in the post before, things are going to change, goverments and corporations are going to learn to hide their tracks and information much more thoroughly ...... so when something really needs whistle blowing, no body would have a clue. And that's how people should remember assange and his bunch of dickheads, the bunch which farked freedom of information over ....... out of fun.
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Originally posted by Fatum:
Yes, I know you aren't mate, but, So what sort of rot are we talking about ? What sort of myths were exploded when some state department bureaucrat describes the pope as a doddering old fart and that tommy koh thinks japan is a big fat loser ? What good was done, really, when something like this is exposed ?
Well, one example is the anwar cable. So .... our side told the aussies that anwar was really a brokebacker, and he was the poker, not the pokee, no less, but the whole thing was an entrapment, and the chap walked right into it, based on "technical intelligence". Prime juicy tabloid material. People on both sides read about it in the papers, sniggers, and forget about it by next week. But what of the strategic ramications ? Now the northern chaps know their communications are being intercepted by us, that their security has likely been compromised by our operatives. What do you think is going to happen next, beyond tommy koh's red face at his KL trip next week ? What do you think this means for the interests of our country ?
Whistle blowing is when, say, a singaporean leaks news that some minstar was embezzeling millions of dollars, or that certain HDB blocks were certified unsafe but hushed up, but if a Singaporean leaked this anwar cable, he won't be whistle blowing, he would be a traitor, period.
the difference here is that while you say, since responsible freedom of information and freedom of speech is just about impossible, let's just do away with any sort of policing altogether, and let everything and anything goes, a little good, outweights the bad and the ugly ?
But I say, regardless, irresponsible freedom of speech and information could have very serious ramifications for the very societies that supports these values. So there must be lines in the sand, and those who crossed it must be stopped and punished.
Don't get me wrong, whistle blowing is fine, maybe even neccessary, except that in this very case, most of the leaks weren't even whistle blowing at anything at all, but exposes of who said what of whom a la supermarkets sunday tabloids. And that is the whole point here. Wikileaks isn't really whistle blowing, it's really satisfying people's thirst for scandals and sordid dirt, and it has also demonstrated very poor judgement of what to do with the materials it has illegally obtained, if not an outright malicious agenda aimed only at nose-thumbing the world's authorities. Do you think you can trust it to exercise responsible freedom of speech, and information ? To put it on the same pedestal as other individuals who risked their lives, career and reputation at exposing something of real import, well, that's just making a mockery of those people, isn't it ?
But of course, at the end of the day, as I've pointed out in the post before, things are going to change, goverments and corporations are going to learn to hide their tracks and information much more thoroughly ...... so when something really needs whistle blowing, no body would have a clue. And that's how people should remember assange and his bunch of dickheads, the bunch which farked freedom of information over ....... out of fun.
You'd notice that I'm refering to the things the site has exposed as a whole. I'd agree that the wide variety of things exposed - some examples of injustice, others less clearly so (like Cablegate) - makes it difficult to uphold as a crusader of justice. Hence I do have my reservations because it's hard to tell whose standards of ethics and justice Wikileaks is using, which makes it difficult for us to hold them accountable to what they claim:
Its ""primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations."
So if it makes public, for instance, Russian plans to stake a claim on oil deposits in the Arctic, and causes people to put pressure on their governments to stop it, that's the sort of situation which would make me a detractor.
But nevermind the antisocials and the hackers who create the DDoS shitstorm. They are no different from rioters at a demonstration - they'll use any cover to create mischief. I never considered Assange a martyr because that would be giving him too much credit. Though this incident has brought about a lot of ill-will, it's a reminder to authority that they cannot always get away with anything. It also exposes the constructs of authority and makes us examine who we entrust with high-level affairs and how they got there.
The media are wont to do what they do best, and that is picking out the soundbites to spoonfeed the population and sell more issues. The suspicion that the population had that Anwar was set up has been given further weight. We know what kind of characters the politicians who represent us are and they are just human.
The Malaysians have their spies in Singapore too and I'm pretty certain of that. Every country partakes espionage and knows that other countries have operatives within their borders - they just don't know where they are. It's a fact that's just been made public yet again. They're calling on us to explain the comments to save their own faces.
To me, this whole scandal is all about public image and very little of it will compromise actual relations when politicians already don't trust one another's guts. Let them make more rules and devise ways to get around them. Like a sports tournament, the opponent gets more difficult with every victory but he doesn't become invincible. I'm sure that secrecy is never going to be absolute; spies will find their ways to get what they need.
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Well, what do you know, even Wikileaks isn't free of irregularities.
Resignations from Wikileaks over lack of financial transparency - The Telegraph
Wikileaks not honouring pledge to help soldier's legal defence - Washington Post
I'm sorry for hijacking the thread like this for the past few evenings; I'm done with this topic for today.
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evening
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Great, so you can agree that cable gate is nothing more than a mischief and attention-seeking, only that you and I would use different language to describe this, eh ? I've suspected that assange was milking this whole thing like a cow from the start.
I guess that ends the maunderings about
what wikileaks pretends to stand for. -
dinner time! it's been a great evening so far
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Originally posted by Fatum:
Great, so you can agree that cable gate is nothing more than a mischief and attention-seeking, only that you and I would use different language to describe this, eh ? I've suspected that assange was milking this whole thing like a cow from the start.
I guess that ends the maunderings about what
wikileaks pretends to stand for.I don't care what was his original intentions whether for money purposes or whats not, but i enjoyed reading the news where Singapore was affected, especially those comments made about other countries.
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Originally posted by stellazio:
I don't care what was his original intentions whether for money purposes or whats not, but i enjoyed reading the news where Singapore was affected, especially those comments made about other countries.
schadenfreude ? ....... but that's your own side, you know .....
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sleepy....
must sleep early tonight....wake up early to do my next weekend getaway...
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Originally posted by LOTUSfairy:
sleepy....
must sleep early tonight....wake up early to do my next weekend getaway...
er dont me asking...where are you going? need to give advance warning to friends and family -
Originally posted by cassie:
er dont me asking...where are you going? need to give advance warning to friends and family
not near your place...hehehehehehehe...damn, i cannot fit into my swim suit...siao liao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!