One might guess similar jokes have circulated concerning other dictatorships over the years.

I'm going to loose my mod points over this, but one of my interests happens to be Eastern Block humor. (Especially the Polish Eastern bloc joke about the Bank of Moscow)

Many jokes of that time period and area were always word of mouth (for obvious reasons) and many jokes ended up being reworded for the leaders and country it involved. Since there was no official publication of the jokes (as that would be treasonous) no one knew that they were copying each other until the after the 1990's.

example

Honecker and Mielke are discussing their hobbies. (both historical persons in charge of the Stasi in East German)
Honecker: "I collect all the jokes about me that are in circulation."
Mielke: "Then we have almost the same hobby. I collect those who bring the jokes into circulation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes

And then the Russian version:

"Comrade Brezhnev, is it true that you collect political jokes?" â" "Yes" â" "And how many have you collected so far?" â" "Three and a half labor camps."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_political_jokes

So the OP is most likley right in that he heard an East German version as you hearing a Russian version seperatley.

The "point" to me sounded like a bunch of bullshit cyberspeak about how the internet is going to turn government into a big drum circle where we all join hands and sing songs of peace and love.

Believe it or not, without the internet and blackberries, the protests in Tunusia and Egypt would not have gained the traction it did.

Now it seems that you are referring to the situation in the USA, but that is a bit more complicated than going into the streets and throwing rocks as most people are invested into the system and have no need to go into the streets to throw rocks.

". The reason for Gitmo is that we are effectively capturing enemy combatants that we cannot properly give Geneva Convention protections to because they do not fight in uniform, nor do they have a sovereign entity that can guarantee punishment for their illegal activities or failing that, who will feel the need or desire to protect our own imprisoned troops in exchange for protection of their imprisoned troops."

After WWII, German officers were hanged for not giving French and Soviet resistant fighters due process under the Geneva conventions. In their defense, the Germans said "They weren't wearing uniforms."

"If you don't like the laws of the country don't visit it. Ignorance of the law is never innocence."

The problem is that it seems the US believes the opposite is true. That if you commit an action on foreign soil that is legal there but illegal in the US, that you must come to the US and face trial even if you weren't a US citizen to begin with.

At least that is what some politicians are calling for...

"Wikileaks' supporters could raise a billboard encouraging support of Wikileaks' mission."

In the USA, the majority of billboards worth a hoot are owned by Clearchannel, who I have a feeling would not allow a pro-Wikileaks billboard to be posted.

Also, in that regard, do you think Mubarak would even consider stepping down if the Egyptians posted a billboard? I think not. Hence, the 'illegal' protests in the street.

This just shows the ignorance 'anonymous' has ...

I'm beginning to believe that anyone that refers to 'anonymous' as an organization is trolling.

And it seems to be happening on both sides of the argument, as the media and pro-government groups want to make these guys into the next Illuminati and the people doing the 'anonymous' posting seem to be getting a really raging epeep when they get attention like this even though they are in fact simply a bunch of people on a message board sharing porn most of the time.

I'll tell you what probably happen...

Some random person on the internet most likely went to a buys 'anonymous' forum (most likely 4chan) and posted "Let's go to this website and mash F5 a bunch of times!"

And it just happened that a few thousand people who read that said "Oh! Why didn't I post this first!" and proceed to go to that website and beat on their F5.

Then the page was in effect, slashdotted as they most likely had poor servers. Then proceed to review their IP logs and pick people at random to make an example.

Of course their are ignorant people who post 'anonymous', because majority of the people in the world aren't really that educated and if you put a large enough subset of people at any gathering, they tend to do stupid things (say a football mach riot in England).

But calling 'anonymous' ignorant is ignorant in itself because it assumes that that group is a unified organization but rather people who sit around and instead of having user names, they don't need to log into post and gather their porn pictures and lolcats.

Its like calling people who use "anonymous coward" on slashdot a corporation of single like minded collectivists who have one goal in mind.

These are simply individuals who post anonymous. Nothing more. Nothing less. Stop making it into something it is not.

Thank you.

The only place where two wrongs make a right is boolean algebra. Revenge/retaliation just continues a cycle of aggression and destruction.

Technically, the American Revolution and the French Resistance was illegal.

There's a trust fund setup to pay compensation to people who are injured by vaccines, that was some sort of compromise because big pharma wouldn't produce vaccines unless they got some sort of liability waiver. Well, if vaccines don't cause any harm, why is there a fund?

Because jury's can still award damages even in cases where scientific data that was provided was sound.

Even if it was obviously not the vaccine that harmed the person.

if anonymous is composed of human beings, it is subject to the sociological rules of any other movement in history. that's just reality.

Humans behave different in different situations. I thought any psychology major would know that.

Put a person in a crowd and they'll do what the crowd is doing. The police can attempt to remove the ringleaders, but the crowd has a mind of its own and therefore unpredictable. (Take the Fall of the Berlin wall which was almost spontaneous and had no central core leadership)

On the same note, put a man in a mask and a uniform and he'll be more likely to harm his fellow man with other men wearing the same thing.

Think of this situation as a rioting crowd of people wearing masks and uniforms. They are all there for different reasons. Some are protesting corruption, some are protesting economics, some are protesting religion, some are there just to loot, and some are there to vandalize.

Lets say a provocateur shouts at a man passing by, "that man burns puppies!", the mob puts asides whatever reasons they were there for and lynches the man.

The riot police come in and arrest the provocateur (or at least who they think it is), but the riot still is ensuing because most of the crowd is still doing their own thing, because the act of the lynching was not the original reason they were there..

I think that is what the OP is trying to say, this is just like how riots and lynchings work where things happen in a very unpredictable way.

After all most people who participate in riots and such events often aren't bad people, but rather get caught up in the moment.

With a group that calls itself Anonymous starts having people get picked off, whether they are "leaders" or not, what does that do to the psyche of the group as a whole?

The nice thing of an anonymous organization is that its own members don't know who each other are.

So not only can you not rat out other members, but members don't really know if the person was caught was actually a member.

And "members" is a wrong word for this because its more or less a group of people who communicate without sharing identities, but only words. No one belongs to anything, no one can identify an actual leader.

If a "leader" was caught, no one would notice his departure because the communications are so random to begin with. Obviously the problem is that anyone could impersonate anyone else but that doesn't seem to be a problem.

It's a rather strange phenomenon.

It just doesn't matter. You are expected to secure your wifi and not doing so isn't a blanket excuse. If it were then everyone would leave their wifi open and there would be no suits.

There is no law, legal requirement, or precedent (AFAIK) that one must secure your router.

Adding to that, there is no law saying the owner of the router is to be punished for unauthorized but illegal use of their network.

Otherwise, people who pirate on coffee shop networks would therefore get the coffee shop in trouble.

BTW, if you have the money, you can get your lawyer to convince the judge to have a jury, you can convince them that the router was hacked regardless of the letter of the law. Remember, in the USA juries can in most cases override the law if they want.

Though the loosing side can always appeal and I'm sure in this instant the MPAA/RIAA have the money.

That said, I'm more concerned about someone hacking my own network to do illegal activity to get me in trouble as I live in a very populous neighborhood. Though, its on of those situations where I just have to be faster than the slowest person to outrun the bear and there does seem to be open networks around me.

I'm not pro-piracy at all, its just that what you are advocating is that innocent people are guilty of copyright infringment if their networks are used unauthorized.

Apparently I not well enough right now to count... Please hold off on your public get well wishes.

Whether you love or hate what he's done in the industry, he's a fellow human being first, and I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Personally, I find it disconcerting when random strangers wish me well in times of sickness especially when its either done in front of other people or in a public forum.

One, it does not make me actually get better.
Two, it makes me wonder if I have to be hurt or sick to get noticed.
Three, if they really cared, they'd make me some soup or something instead.
Five, there is no need to do it publicly to make yourself seem like the next Mother Theresa. Send me a get well soon card in private as there is no need to broadcast your charity to others in some display of your holiness.

But seriously, people really shouldn't make a habit of publicly wishing people well they don't know or have emotions about. To be fair, you'd have to wish everyone on the planet well so unless you say "...and I wish all 6 billion people well!" at the end of your comment, then you're not really being nice to everyone else sick and dying (technically everyone has contracted mortality at birth).

BUT if you play them to the point where you can't pry yourself away from them, then you have problems.

I think the real issue is that things like playing video games excessively and heavy drinking is a sign of mental disorder, not the cause.

Basically the addictions themselves do not cause the problem but rather the person is in a state where an addictive outlet is required. Whether this over eating, drinking, gambling, hoarding, excessive video gaming etc etc, that taking the activity away does not solve the underlying problem.

In most cases a person with an addictive disorder will simply replace the behavior with another one.

Right, OPEC... I'm absolutely certain that our biggest petroleum source in OPEC, Canada, would side with Iran should we go to war. That makes perfect sense.

China might be unhappy as Iran is its leading oil import nation and such a move would cause their energy prices to skyrocket.

Of course, they could make up the difference by selling the Iranians weapons.