For anyone keeping up on the topic of internet censorship, this probably came as no surprise. A while ago, the Chinese Communist Party mandated that any computer sold within the Mainland as of July 1 come with pre-installed censorship software that the Chinese Communist Party says would protect youth from “harmful” websites. What they say they mean is “pornography”, what they really mean are websites that may be politically sensitive, anything from the advocation of Taiwanese sepratism to pages on, for example, the Congressional Executive Committee on China, a United States government think-tank (which was blocked when I tried to access it in Beijing). The CCP has since backed down, at least a little. More recent news reported that installation of the software is now voluntary, but it will be pre-packaged on computers. It’s still a troubling possibility; autocratic governments sometimes define rather fluidly what “voluntary” really means, but it’s at least better than we originally thought. It does bring up a good question, though: What’s the responsibility of corporations to comply with political directives?

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To anyone who’s visited Economist.com lately, this will come as no surprise. But to those who haven’t seen it before, would you care to guess the controversial, divisive issue that currently holds the honor of being the 3rd most commented story on the entire website at the moment?

IMPORTS to China plunged in January, signalling that demand is shrinking alarmingly: they fell by 43.1% compared with a year earlier, worse than forecast and double the decline in December. But China’s trade surplus, at $39.1 billion, is one of the biggest on record because a huge tumble in exports of 17.5 was dwarfed by falling imports. A recovery in Chinese exports is unlikely as the world slides deeper into an economic slump but imports may well pick up—China has resumed importing iron ore after running down stocks in recent months. China’s economy could also get a boost from a big government stimulus package.

That’s the entire story– essentially a verbal explanation of a graph released by the Chinese government, without any real editorial content. And last time I checked, when it was roughly 200 comments, it didn’t come close to matching the scale of historic, earlier posts, most of them around the time of the Olympics regarding media freedom or the Communist Party.

The comment board might as well, though, be like every other story out there. Comments on the China Daily (at least before they’re moderated out) usually take the same route– someone makes a comment about the imminent fall of Western society and China’s simultaneous rise, someone else counters that the Chinese government is evil and corrupt, and then they go at it for 20 pages.

I suppose you can attribute a good deal of the vitriol between commentators in the West and China to the fact that they’re commentators; being confrontational and unreasonable is part of their nature (people watching Youtube can’t even get along). But it’s also a disappointing fact of the ideological divide that seperates us. I’ll be frank and state that it is my wish that China become a more open Government, and I say that having spent a substantial amount of time living over here, with a fair amount of cultural and linguistic fluency. It was my assumption in first coming here that closed governments, which disallowed media freedom, would lose their grip when the light of truth was shined inside their borders. Public reaction to that light, however, has been anything but favorable.

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No matter which side of the debate you fall on, the decision just passed can’t have pleased you. It was a classic compromise, guaranteed to make everyone a little less outraged but no one truly satisfied. Unfortunately, people pressed with difficult decisions sometimes opt for these copouts.

The issue raises an enduring question– Do we hold people responsible for subscribing to the views popular at the time, views that we now know to be wrong?

Whichever side of the debate you fall on, it isn’t too much to ask for a little continuity. So, my question to you, if you favor the decision, is what you’ll be changing your name to.

Chances are you were named after a deceased relative or other historical figure, one who probably grew up about 60 or more years ago, whom there’s a good chance subscribed to the overwhelmingly popular consensus of race at the time. And while you’d be right in saying that this person didn’t, like Wildermuth, advocate segregation, chances are they didn’t have much of a voice either way.

But since most people when elected to positions of power make decisions upon what they already believe, the only meaningful difference between your detestable, racist ancestors and Wildermuth is that Wildermuth held more influence at IU. You’d be kidding yourself, however, if you said that their views were very different.

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I never meet face-to-face with Bloomington’s more radical political entities, however, my car has enjoyed that distinct pleasure. Three times.

I sport a McCain bumper sticker (at least, I try to). But it has been torn off my car twice, and the third reincarnation has been defaced with a sloppily written “fuck” on it. Apparently, the intended message is “fuck” John McCain 08. Who says poetry has to rhyme?

Personally, I prefer it defaced. It doesn’t speak well of the opposition, supposedly rabid defenders of such organizations as the ACLU, who refuse my simple privilege of voicing my support for The Good Senator. Either way, my car now not only tells you who you should vote for, but why.

As I was going to College Mall the other day for a haircut, I stumble across this gem of a public information sign right past the main entrance.

 Fantastic. I know.

 My chief complaint isn’t even that it essentially treats teenage mall patrons like Islamic Women under Shariah law, as it prevents them from gathering in groups of more than 5 people. It’s that it tries to do this through mock text-messages.

For some reason, text message advertising has always struck me as bothersome. I could never before define quite why. Somehow, whenever the underfunded and obviously idea-starved marketing department decides it wants to connect with the youth demographic, it decides to code its message in what it imagines to be the parlance of our times. But they can never get the tone right.

IU does the same thing. It likes to air advertisements on the busses with text messages that read like they’re supposed to be friend to friend, for example, encouraging them to sell books at the bookstore:

“Sell UR books @ the IU Bookstore and get $$$ rly fast! U should do it!”

Attending the Career Fair:

“The IU Career Fair is totally swt, i found a gr8 job that will pay me $$$!”.

 These things strike someone who actually uses text messages as the pinnacle of ridiculousness, like the Empire Carpet spokesman tippin’ slow on 22s, ghost-riding the Empire Van. “You’ll save mad guap, son!”

The best way not to sell something is to illustrate through ineptitude the generational gap. Simon Mall had better brace itself for more vandalization, more groups of teenagers, and more spite from its tired masses. That this sign will breed anything but the highest contempt is wishful thinking at its worst.

                Having heard this, any jokes I could make about UC Boulder suddenly seem inadequate. So great is the political bent on their campus that they are thinking about hiring a Professor of Conservative Thought. This is not someone in perhaps their Economics or political science department who teaches a subject and is in fact conservative, but rather someone whose job it is to think conservatively.

                One can’t help but be reminded of a travelling circus, where for the price of admission and a bag of peanuts, one can hear the Conservative Professor go on stage and be urged by the Lion Tamer’s auxiliary to argue for the flat tax. A spectacle of rarity rather than value; the last living speaker of an ancient and forgotten language.

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Apparently, Hillary Clinton owes IU a ton of money and she isn’t paying.

Like the article says, we’re probably not first in line among her creditors (who are owed something to the tune of $20 mil).

Still. The fact that IU is actually poorer (not just dumber) from having Hillary Clinton on our campus is just adding insult to injury. We should hire a collections agency or something.

As everyone knows, the Free Trade question has been pretty prevalent lately. The New Yorker discusses the issue fairly well.

The Free Trade Paradox

And they say McCain doesn’t know economics.

H/T: Greg Mankiw

The Sample Gates will resume for the Summer with its new staff, who can be found on the right. Look for new content to begin rolling out soon!

So, faithful Cartoonist Erich Reinhard and I just watched the Democratic Presidential Debates. I know, I’m a glutton for punishment, and the truth is that I haven’t been happy with the depth of the subject matter covered (in any debate) so far, but this one reached a new low. The moderation was fantastic, but even when the moderators did their jobs well it seemed all they were striving for was an “Ohhh SNAP!” reaction from viewers. They cared most about inter-candidate relations, not policy differences on meaningful or timely subjects.

My favorite questions include:

“Why don’t you wear the flag lapel?” And,

“Does your pastor love America as much as you do?”

People have been asked more hard-hitting questions on Sesame Street. And they were probably just as relevant.

Nowhere did trade come up (over which Hillary just fired her Campaign Strategist), nor did the issues of Iran or China ever really develop. Taxation made a brief appearance, in which Obama took the occasion to let us know he doesn’t understand the Laffer Curve as it relates to Capital Gains taxes. Let’s get McCain to give him a lesson.

But what’s really surprising is that if you had to sum up the moderator’s responses to Obama’s statements, they could be essentially described as “No.”

At previous debates, people rightly pointed out every moderator’s nonsexual crush on him, and their utter indifference to what’s-her-name. This time around, they seemed intent on swatting him down, and threw easy pitches to Hillary.

He referred to his pastor as someone he’s “disowned” and then when they asked him if he really “disowned” him, he flatly said no. He said no to new taxes and then said he would take income from those who make above a certain level. The moderators rightly asked “Isn’t that just a tax?”

Maybe they sort of had to be tough. The way he began, in nimbly evading his unexplainable “bitter” remark he left you both placated and thoroughly confused. From there, the moderators wouldn’t let him get away with anything, and they surely did their homework digging up dirt on him.

By the end, Hillary seemed content in just watching him suffer. She said progressively less while he buried himself with a shovel in each hand, and came out the clear victor. So what do you think? Is she going to take Pennsylvania, and will it be enough to keep her alive?