Terror label is correct, tricky - Viewpoints

A piece by my International Relations professor. Since some were asking about the incident I thought I'd pass it on.

Campaign site I built

Put this together for my friend Ben (who my mom knows from her work on national boards for the United Methodist Church). If elected he'll be the first enrolled member of the Cherokee nation to serve as a Swain County Commissioner. Check it out. I should have the campaign blog up soon.

2006 Truman Scholars announced

UNC got one, but Willamette didn't get any. They look like a good bunch.

Yahoo! - Press Release

The testimony of the Yahoo! VP at the congressional hearing. Thought I'd give you a link to the other side, if you're interested. I guess it's not as cut-and-dry as it first sounded. I'm sure there are responses to this, since corporations are always good at putting the best spin on anything...

Before discussing these issues in detail, allow me to clarify Yahoo!'s current role in China. In October 2005, Yahoo! formed a long-term strategic partnership in China with Alibaba.com, a Chinese company. Under the agreements, Yahoo! merged our Yahoo! China business with Alibaba.com.

It is very important to note that Alibaba.com is the owner of the Yahoo! China businesses, and that as a strategic partner and investor, Yahoo!, which holds one of the four Alibaba.com board seats, does not have day-to-day operational control over the Yahoo! China division of Alibaba.com. The Alibaba.com management team runs the business; however, as a large equity investor, we have made clear our desire that Alibaba.com continue to apply rigorous standards in response to government demands for information about its users. I have personally discussed our views with senior management of Alibaba.com, as have other senior executives of Yahoo!.

[...]

When we receive a demand from law enforcement authorized under the law of the country in which we operate, we must comply. This is a real example of why this issue is bigger than any one company and any one industry. All companies must respond in the same way. When a foreign telecommunications company operating in the United States receives an order from U.S. law enforcement, it must comply. Failure to comply in China could have subjected Yahoo! China and its employees to criminal charges, including imprisonment. Ultimately, U.S. companies in China face a choice: comply with Chinese law, or leave.

Using new host

So, I've made the switch. This site was down for a few days, but is up now (obviously). Some sections might not work for a while, so please have patience. Instead of putting the photos back up I'm going to sign up with a good photo-sharing service I found. Give me some time on that, too.

Rulablog is the top priority since it's totally down. Word Press uses MySQL, a type of database, and I need to set that up on my new host and probably do a few other things before it'll work.

Going to a dinner with prospective graduate students in a few minutes. It's weird because they're doing the same events for them that they did for me when I was a visiting student and it seems like not that long ago that I was here in that capacity, yet I've changed so much...

site may be down

I'm in the process of switching hosts (the move will save me $30, more on this some other time, perhaps). I'll try to make things go smoothly, but the site may be down for up to a few days sometime this month. Sorry. You'll live.

driver in the pit

since some have asked...

no, i wasn't there. no, i don't know anyone who was hurt. yes, it's nuts. no, i don't feel unsafe. no, i don't have anything interesting to say about it. except that i'm sorry it overshadowed good news from later that night.

i'm sure there will be many students blogging about it and flaming each other and all that exciting stuff if you're interested.