Actually, the main part of this deal is that Microsoft changes it to an american flag... of, well, death.

So if this was a handful of doctors performing an illegal practice in another large country, lets say the US. Would the headline read something like "America's controversial brain surgery..."?

I can't wait to see what things we are about to find out about Ecuador after he's out of there!

Wohooo I am a ghost from the future who come flying in here at night to give you a peek at how the world could be if your idea gets realized, have a look at these future wikipedia articles, whohooooowooowow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_smart_card
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

Are you sure Coca Cola isn't just making the IDS toothless and obese? The palestinians should thank them!

Most of my local chinese language teachers do it to access facebook, my local classmates in the lab do it (to access japanese porn?). Nobody is afraid. I don't think the goverment really cares unless a significant portion of the population does it to discuss political issues. Actually a lot of educated people in china are quite aware of all the issues being reported in western media, it seems the government is mainly concerned about the masses. Hence for instance the chinese language BBC news website is blocked but the english version is completely available.

News for nerds. This has some times been described as a sort of "nerd sydrome" as some of it's symptoms coincide with the common perception of nerds. It's interesting as certain aspecs of it acually seems to be an advantage for people in scientific fields.

You're right. Only Apple has the magic powers to remove functionality, raise the price, give it rounded corners and earn tons of money off it.

So you prefer the apparent Israeli rule of 12 eyes for an eye? Meanwhile Israel still keeps their finger in the Gazan eye in form of constant oppression. The Israeli self-defense seems analogous to killing a cop in self-defense while robbing a bank.

What if the Israelis didn't steal their land and treat them like shit in the first place? I'm sure the government and military of Israel understands perfectly well that their occupation and blockade is exactly what feeds hatred and desperation but the just refuse to do the right thing.

Looking at the current state of things, hasn't Google already withdrawn from mainland China more or less? If the government would make the decision to block Google's services because they are somehow not abiding Chinese law, I don't doubt they could do so easily.

I live in west china and starting some time last week, is the only time I've had problems accessing Gmail. There hasn't been any complete blocking, but access have been slow and sporadic in a way that I would usually assume is just issues with the service itself. The only odd thing is that it's always worked flawlessly before and it's coincidence with the congress.

Ah, yes, my previous comment is completely stupid once one reads the previous comment correctly, sorry about that.

In a way correct but a bit oversimplified. Though Hong Kong and Macau (part of the PRC) do have a rather high GDP per capita as well, just saying.

You are right in that it has a political system of it's own without direct interference from Beijing, but it's status as a nation IS controversial and not many nations recognize them as such nor maintain official diplomatic relations with them. Also, some Taiwanese nationalists would agree that they are the same nation (but of course they think China should not be ruled by the CPC).

Last time I went there, the official name of Taiwan was something like the Republic of China and I think it still is.

Ehm, have you heard of the Communist Party of China?

You insensitive clod! What makes you think I wasn't trying to say something funny? No one will ever take my perversion seriously now!